Cakewalk
by IsabellaDangelo
Summary: Fluff! What happens when Bella agrees to make cakes for a cakewalk at school? Esme decides to help! Pure family fluff now through out the story with some Edward X Bella Fluff. Cannon pairs. Eclipse slightly AU.
1. Morituri te salutamus

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** First of all, not mine. Not in the least. The only things I own are a nice little townhome, a dog, and maybe a nice new truck by the end of the day. (It's blue, baby! Blue!) Twilight, not so much. Although, if it has the Cullen Crest on it, I like to at least think it's mine.

**Summary:** Pure fluff. With extra fluff. This is slightly out of sequence with the stories but it basically somewhere in Eclipse. I wanted to do a Mother/Daughter fluff scene with Bella and Esme making a cake. The only reason I could come up with for Bella making a cake was to have a fund raiser of some sort so...hence the Senior Trip that never happened in the books! Unless it's one to Italy....hehehe....

I came up with this while working on my other project. I can only think in 17th c English for so long before the modern nonsense comes out. I'll finish this up today or tomorrow and then go back to the other one.

* * *

Why oh why did I agree to this? Oh, that's right. Because I'm Bella Swan and I couldn't let Angela do this all on her own.

Angela, one of the few human friends I have, agreed to help with the fund raiser for our Senior year trip. We had a budget, a plan, and talent. The talent being myself, Angela, Ben, Mike, Jessica, Alice, my beloved Edward, and a few other kids from our class. We were going to have a raffle, a silent auction, and a cakewalk.

Alice and Edward both decided to "donate" something for the silent auction. I didn't even have to look at the objects they donated to know that they were going to be more than most people's salaries for a month. Stupid all-knowing, all-seeing vampires….

Oh yes, I was in a bad mood. Why? Because despite the fact I get to hang out with all my friends to help "plan" the mini fair we were going to have after school next Friday, I got put in charge of baking cakes for the cakewalk.

Originally, I was going to bake only one or two and then Lauren, the very epitome of evil right now, snarfed at the idea of me baking. Alice didn't like that at all and Edward just pulled me closer, kissing me on the head. "Great, I wonder if either cake will survive given that Bella will most likely faceplant into one of them," the embodiment of darkness muttered. That caused Edward to growl into my hair. I did the only thing I could do, turn beet red.

Alice turned to Lauren and smiled sweetly before anyone else could defend me. "I think it's a great idea if Bella makes a couple of the cakes. Bella makes the best cakes," Alice informed the group. Like she would know; after all, she was a vampire and couldn't even remember ever eating cake! Well, at least not at a time when it would have tasted any good.

"Oh really?" Lauren asked, fawning innocence. She put both hands on either side of her face as she leaned slightly across the table towards Alice…and Edward.

"Of course! Bella cooks and bakes a lot at home," Alice started off truthfully at least. Well, sort of. I did cook and bake but that didn't mean I did so well. "I am 100% positive that everyone will love the cakes Bella makes," Alice said, smiling and then giggling at her own little rhyme. I think I went from beet to fire engine red when Alice said that.

"Well, then, maybe Bella should make all five cakes," Lauren stated, trying to act all nonchalant while she took up a sudden interest in her fingernails. "After all, we wouldn't want anyone to get a bad cake and demand their money back, would we?" she asked.

It was Mike that spoke up this time. "Lauren! That's too much! We have to split all this evenly," he said, half glaring at her. Jessica looked slightly upset as if she wasn't sure where her allegiance should lie in this mini battle.

"If Bella is such a good little baker," Lauren started. I heard another growl from Edward. "Then, five cakes should be nothing at all," she finished.

I figured it was about time to actually say something about me and my baking skills given that that was the current topic. "I can probably do two," I started, looking around the table at our assembled Seniors. "Maybe three. Will that be enough?" I asked. I didn't want to have anyone else shoulder making another couple of cakes if all we needed were three. Three by Friday? Three I might be able to do….

Lauren turned to me, an evil glint in her eye. It was Angela that spoke up though. "Three is great, Bella! I can make another two and then well have plenty for the cakewalk," Angela stated.

"This will be so much fun!" Alice chirped. I only groaned in response.

So, now I have to make three cakes by Friday. Today is Wednesday. If Charlie had a bigger kitchen and more cake pans than the one 8"x8", this wouldn't be that hard. However, the kitchen was about the size of your average dorm room (now that I had seen them in one of Charlie and Edward's "you've got to check out the colleges" tasks) and half of that was taken up but the mismatched breakfast table. The oven, which I knew was way older than me, and maybe close to being older than Charlie, was not up to the task of three cakes in a 48 hour period. It simply wasn't possible.

While I stood there, in the middle of the yellow painted cabinet kitchen, I felt two familiar cold arms around me. Almost instinctively, I leaned back against him. "Hi," I whispered.

He chuckled. "Hello, Bella," he whispered back. He must have seen my line of sight before he wrapped his arms around me. "Is there something terribly interesting regarding the oven?" Edward asked.

I grimaced. "No," I told him. I waited a couple of seconds, still thinking of the mathematical possibilities of getting three cakes done in the tiny oven with only one 8"x8" pan, then I turned in his arms to bury my face in his chest. "I don't want to bake cake," I muttered.

I could feel Edward's smile before he gently pulled back and then lifted my chin. "And why not? I thought you liked to cook," he asked me while looking into my eyes. Darn it! He was dazzling me again. Stupid perfect vampire boyfriend….gag!

"I umm…" I started and then managed, somehow, to look behind me at the oven. Oh, that's right. The oven. "The oven is old and won't heat up quickly," I told him before burying my head back into his chest. "That, and I only have one cake pan," I grimaced. Yes, I could go and buy more while I went go buy the ingredients but that was beside the point! The point was that Lauren was evil and Alice hadn't helped.

Edward laughed softly at me. I grumbled. "You know, love, there is more than one cake pan over at my house, I do believe," he informed me. I stood back a bit and looked at him. Why the heck would vampires get more than one cake pan?

He shrugged, taking in my expression. "Esme liked the purple and colbat glass ones. She wanted to use them in one of her decorating themes for the kitchen," he informed me. That would explain it. I have learned that Esme was to interior design was Alice was to fashion. The only difference was the Esme didn't demand to re-do my room every other day.

"Do you think Esme would let me use them?" I asked, staring back at the oven. I could maybe fit two at a time into the oddly small contraption. Maybe if I put one on the bottom rack and one on the top…I just had to hope they didn't fall.

"I think Esme would be happy to lend you use of the entire kitchen, if you so wished," Edward told me. I turned to him to see a smile on his lips. My eyes must have shown my shock. "She loves that she has you so she can actually use the kitchen. To have you use it, to have it be a _functional_ kitchen, would make her happy," he informed me quietly with a kiss on my forehead.

"Really?" I asked, all full of hope now. The Cullen kitchen was a dream kitchen. It was a shame that it got so little use. Well, except for the ice maker. Emmett and Jasper apparently think its fun to throw ice and also tried to rig the thing up one day to make their own indoor skating rink. I know Carlisle and Esme weren't happy with that one and I don't think Edward was quite as innocent of helping with that as he claims.

"Of course, love!" he laughed at me before taking my hand to lead me outside to his car. We were planning on going over to his house this afternoon. Alice wanted my opinion on one of the games for the fair. She had said earlier something about needing a human's perceptive…

"I believe Esme may even wish to help," Edward continued as he opened the passenger side door. I waited the second it took for him to slide into the driver's seat before speaking. "You already told her about the cakewalk?" I asked speculatively.

Edward shrugged as he pulled out of my driveway and started to go 80+ mph towards his house. "Esme always wants to know about our days at school," he stated.

I crossed my arms and sank into me seat. I had a feeling that, somehow, somewhere, this was really part of a grand vampire conspiracy that would end up with me dressed up like Betty Crocker and only being allowed to put icing on three perfectly even, perfectly matched cakes. They wouldn't even have those little spongy bubbles or the slight dip in the middle.

Edward looked at me, concerned, from the corner of his eye but said nothing the rest of the way to his house. I thought about the horrors of pink lacy aprons until he pulled into the garage. By the time I unbuckled my seatbelt, Edward had my door open and held his hand out for me.

"Thanks," I whispered. We walked into the house to find Jasper and Emmett playing Mario Cart. Jasper was Luigi and Emmett was Bowser. "Hey, Bella!" I heard both of them call over their shoulders followed by Emmett's "You are so going down, bro," to Jasper.

"Never!" Jasper exclaimed, followed by a quick movement of the wireless steering wheel that caused Bowser (Emmett's character) to go over the edge of a mushroom. Emmett pouted until a little cloud guy pulled him out of the abyss and he could race again. "I'm going to get you for that," Emmett grumbled.

Edward shook his head and gently lead me to the kitchen. Inside the Cullen kitchen, it was every chef's dream. It was wide and open and had a large island in the center. Esme was upon a small step ladder pulling down glass cake pans from a cabinet above the fridge.

"Hello, Esme," Edward greeted – for all intents and purposes- his mother. She turned and quickly came down the ladder placing the glass cake pans on the island in one smooth motion before coming over to give us each a hug. "Edward! Bella!" she greeted us before taking me from Edward. "Alice and Edward both told me you might need some help with the cakes," she said. "I hope you don't mind," she almost asked more than said. Her eyes looked worried, like Renee's get when she really wants me to do something with her but she leaves it to me to decide.

"I'd love some help, Esme," I told her truthfully. I looked to Edward who was looking towards the living room where his brothers were still, loudly, playing Mario Cart. "Go, play," I shooed him. Edward grinned and ran, vampire speed, to the living room. I think I heard him say something about wanting to play Wario but I'm not sure.

I turned my attention back to Esme and then to the very colorful display of glassware. I realized a few of these cake pans were probably too old to be trusted with, well, me. I'm pretty sure the green and pink glass cake plates that Esme had also dug out were at least as old as Emmett and Rosalie. I think Mom called them "depression ware" or something like that…

"Wow, you really do have a lot of cake pans," I said and I picked up one that looked to have been made in my lifetime. It was purple and said it was microwave safe. Good, it was made in the last 30 years or so then. If I broke it, I wouldn't feel nearly as bad as breaking the antiques.

Esme smiled warmly at me. "There was a lovely picture I saw a few years ago of a kitchen that had glassware all around the top of the wall. It seemed a lovely idea at the time," she said while picking up a cobalt blue cake pan. "Unfortunately, I forgot to factor in children," she said whimsically. I could imagine what she meant. Emmett deciding that the kitchen was the perfectly place to play pong with a dodgeball or Alice and one of her schemes; either way, I surprised any of the cake pans made it out intact!

Esme's butterscotch eyes looked up at me and smiled. "So, what do we do first, dear?" she asked, letting me at least pretend to run this show. In all honesty, I'm not sure if any of my vampires _could _cook but I was still going with the whole "grand vampire conspiracy" theory for now. …where was Alice anyway? Shouldn't I be in a vintage apron and having my hair curled to perfection by now? I decided not to question it.

"I think we probably need to go to the store," I told her. I know they had some food for me around the house. Well, they had chips, popcorn, a year's supply of chocolate, and caffeine free coke-cola. It wasn't what you'd consider healthy eating.

Esme whisked up the keys and promptly lead me out to the silver Volvo. Of course, this was not before doing her motherly "I will tear your limb from limb if there is even a crack in the floor" look to the boys. "I'm taking Bella to the store. I expect the house to be in perfect condition when I get back, gentlemen," is what she said, but her eyes had a different story.

I giggled quietly at the "Yes'm"s and "Okay, Mom"s I heard as I went out towards the car. Three strong vampire men brought down by one vampire mom. Never underestimate the power of a mother.

Esme drove quickly, but not as quickly as Edward, to the Thriftway in town. She happily got a cart and threw her designer purse into the child's seat. I guess it was because she'd seen every other human female do that. "Now, where do we start?" she asked, her eyes brimming with happiness. I guess she was really enjoying doing something _human_.

I tapped my chin in thought. "I guess, we can start with the cake mix aisle and then see what else we need to get from there," I told her. Esme nodded and let me lead the way aisle 9 where I knew the cake mixes would be.

I, of course, didn't see the small yellow sign warning everyone of the slick floor and started to slip. Just before my head made contact with the hard linoleum floor, Esme bent down and caught me. She quickly straightened me up and looked around carefully to make sure no one saw her move so quick. "You must be more careful, dear," she whispered into my ear. I blushed and mumbled an apology.

Esme simply smiled. "Not that I wouldn't mind seeing my husband at work, but I don't want to see you hurt either," she said as she pushed the cart to the cake box aisle. I was up to beet level red as I followed her.

Now came the hardest part of making a cake, or, at least to me it was the hardest part. What kind of cake should I bake? I looked at the large array of cake mixes and decided I should make at least one yellow and one chocolate but what kind of chocolate? The yellow cake mix was a slightly easier decision since I almost always went with the butter recipe. I quickly grabbed that box and threw it into the cart.

"Hmmm," I said aloud while I glanced over every mix from "Funfetti" to "German dark chocolate". Esme pulled out one of the boxes and looked at it critically. "What about this one?" she asked as she handed me the box. It was for carrot cake. I, for one, detested carrot cake on the very principle that vegetables and sugar should never be intertwined.

"I don't know," I started and then I looked up at her, about to say more. Esme looked…sad? Maybe that wasn't the right word. She looked like how I did when I knew I was about to get a bad grade on a project that I had worked at. I suddenly realized why Esme looked that way.

It has probably been about 80 years since she's had to do any real grocery shopping. Sure, the Cullen's did some shopping to keep up appearances but they never had to actually eat any of the stuff they ever bought. It was simply thrown away (or used for target practice) almost immediately after whomever went shopping got home. At least, that's how it was until I came. Edward's little human as Rosalie use to snide.

Esme was trying to actually think about what to really make. I tried to think of what would possess her to pick up carrot cake and I smiled slightly at her. She probably knew I loved carrots with ranch dressing –yum!- and she did know I loved cake so she probably thought the combination of both would be my favorite. I wanted to hug her.

"Not everyone likes carrot cake," I started carefully and it made me feel like the worst human in the world when I saw her face fall. "And since we are doing this for the cakewalk, and not just for me," I quickly amended, "we should probably go with things that most people like."

Thank goodness, she smiled at that. Esme took the box and put it back on the shelf. "What are some kinds that everyone likes?" she asked, re-scanning the boxes.

"Well, I got yellow cake," I said gesturing to the cake mix already in the cart, "and I'm thinking of the rich chocolate one but I'm not sure." I also needed a third one but I was having enough trouble deciding between rich chocolate and devil's food cake right now. One yellow, one chocolate, and one ummm…coffee cake maybe? Ugh! I hate this part in cake making!

It took me a moment to realize Esme was watching me carefully. I glanced up at her. "Which ones are you trying to choose between?" she asked in her motherly fashion.

"The rich chocolate still and Devil's food cake," I told her. She looked slightly startled and placed a hand where her heart was.

"_Devil's food _cake?" she asked breathlessly.

I blinked. What was wrong with Devil's food cake? "Yeah, it's pretty good. It's got more of a cocoa flavoring than a milk chocolate flavoring, or at least I think so," I told her.

"What on earth is in it?" she asked warily. I suddenly had to smile. It was the name. A vampire was afraid of devil's food cake? God help us all! If she had been Alice or Edward, I would have teased her mercilessly. But it was Esme, my second mother, and I simply couldn't do that to her.

Instead, I choked down my giggles and managed to pick up the box to read off the ingredients. "Ummm, flour, sugar, cocoa, some chemicals I can't pronounce right," I informed her.

Gently, she took the box from me and looked at the ingredients herself. She bit her lip and seemed to be deep in thought. "Why don't you get the rich chocolate instead?" she asked. I nodded and knew better than to question my second mother. I placed the rich chocolate cake mix in the cart while Esme put the devil's food cake mix back on the shelf.

"We need one more," I told her. She looked a bit wary this time and quickly glanced back over the packages of cake mix. "Is classic white good?" she asked.

"Perfect!" I exclaimed happily. The warm swimmingly happy look was back in her butterscotch eyes. Esme placed the box of cake mix in with the other two. I quickly picked out matching icings for the three cakes. The icing was easy. The hard part was simply figuring out what to make!

I looked at the various sprinkles and a part of me realized that Esme could help with this. She wanted to help, that's why she was here with me. Choosing sprinkles, although a small part in making a cake, was very much a part of the human experience. "Esme?" I asked her.

"Yes, dear?" she replied while looking at the things we had in the cart.

"What sprinkles do you think we should get?"

At this, she quickly, almost took quickly, moved right next to me. She looked over the meager selection of sprinkles that Thriftway provided us and picked up a jar of multi colors and a jar of blue sprinkles. "How about these two?" she asked.

"Those would be great, Esme," I told her happily. I was always one for the colored sugar crystal sprinkles but I knew a lot of people just liked the multi-colored ones. She took them and placed them in the child's seat next to her purse on the cart.

"Do we need anything else?" Esme asked, looking again at the contents of our outing.

I nodded. "Eggs and vegetable oil," I told her. As we moved to the next aisle, where they hid the vegetable oils, I wondered if they had measuring cups and spoons. I doubt those would really come in handy with interior decorating.

"Esme?" I asked.

"Bella?" she replied while she looked over the various vegetable oils. I picked up the Crisco one and looked at her. She smiled warmly back at me until she saw my expression.

"Do you have measuring cups and spoons at the house?" I asked. If not, we can always stop by Charlie's on the way back. I know there are some at his house. Well, not a tablespoon but I typically made do with just the half tablespoon. Where the real tablespoon went is a complete mystery that will never be solved. Maybe Edward and I will find it three hundred years from now in an archeology dig of Forks! Yeah. Right.

"Oh, yes, we do. Don't worry about that," she told me smiling. Something in the way she said it worried me. Like they had them for some reason I would never want to know, like extreme Volcano making for a science class years ago. Well, at least measuring spoons don't come in antique glass – I don't think- and I'll let Esme handle the measuring cup so as not to break anything in a house full of vampires.

We got the eggs easily enough, and butter to grease the pans with. Esme, of course, had pulled out the credit card before I could argue…much. I did try to dissuade her from paying for _my_ project for _my_ senior class fund raiser. It didn't work. At all. All I got was a laugh and a "Bella, sweetheart, I want to help you!"

At least she let me carry one of the two bags to the car. Thankfully, she carried the bag with the eggs. I don't want to think what would have happened to the eggs when I tripped on air, again. Esme couldn't catch me that time given there were too many people round.

"Bella! Are you alright dear?" she asked as she helped pick me up and dust my jeans off.

"I'm fine," I sighed and went towards the passenger door.

"Are you sure, sweetheart?" she asked in her worried mother tone.

"Yeah, just some scrapped palms" and a bruised ego again, I said/thought as I pulled my seatbelt over me. It was a very light scrap at that; no blood, thank goodness.

"Alright, Bella but I do want you to be more careful," she said in her serious mother tone. I smiled at that. "Yes, Esme." And with that, we headed back to the house to make cakes!


	2. Mater

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** First of all, not mine. Not in the least. The only things I own are a nice little townhome, a dog, and a super awesome fabric collection. Twilight, not so much. Although, if it has the Cullen Crest on it, I like to at least think it's mine.

**Summary:** Pure fluff. With extra fluff. This is slightly out of sequence with the stories but it basically somewhere in Eclipse. I wanted to do a Mother/Daughter fluff scene with Bella and Esme making a cake. The only reason I could come up with for Bella making a cake was to have a fund raiser of some sort so...hence the Senior Trip that never happened in the books! Unless it's one to Italy....hehehe....

**Author's Note:** Wow! Thanks y'all! Cakes for everyone! :-) I have found out this story is going to be a lot longer than I first anticipated. Oh well. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

As we pulled up to the Cullen family home, I noticed a couple of things at once. One, the house was still standing. That was amazing onto itself from what I've been told regarding some of the antics from the boys. Two, the yard…not so much in tact.

Where a nice pretty meadow had been in front of the house, there was now a scraped up bit of earth and two vampires fighting…with a third laughing on the sidelines. I heard Esme mumble "Boys" and something else I couldn't make out. She carefully pulled into the garage and turned to me. "Wait here for a moment, dear," she told me before stepping out of the car. "I'm going to speak with my sons," she more muttered than said as she gracefully exited the vehicle.

From the rearview mirror, I could see Edward and Jasper "play" fighting and Emmett laughing in near hysterics near them. I twisted my head, and a good part of my body around, to get a better view. I could see Esme walking towards the boys from the corner of my eye. As soon as Emmett saw her, he stopped laughing and managed to nudge the wrestling pair with his foot. Although I couldn't hear him, I could see him lips move in what I assumed was a "umm, guys?" type statement.

Jasper and Edward immediately got up. Edward dusted himself off, not that it helped in the slightest, while Jasper stood at attention. I turned back to the windshield and giggled. Jasper looked like he was meeting a General and not sweet gentle Esme.

I could only hear muffled sounds from the conversation going on so I decided to get out of the car. By the time I had managed to untangle myself from the seatbelt and turn around to face everyone, Edward had started to fight with Emmett! I could barely make out Esme shaking her head because Jasper had sped over towards me.

"What was it this time?" I asked the tall blonde in front of me. Jasper simply grinned. I tried to look around him as I heard the somewhat familiar sounds of "Now, boys, is this any way to behave?" from Esme.

"What kind of cakes are you going to make, Bella?" Jasper asked, still smiling. I looked at him critically. He rarely talked to me, given his whole newness to this lifestyle, which I understood…but to also have him ask me about cakes? I was going back to my grand vampire conspiracy theory.

I noticed Alice, his wife, and Rosalie, were no where to be seen. I also happened to notice with a sideways glance that Rosalie's BMW was no where to be seen. So those two were together which meant they were shopping…which could mean that I would still end up in a ruffly pink apron, curled hair, and make-up. Alice could have very well told Jasper to distract me until she got back. He was doing a good job…

"Chocolate, Yellow, and White," I easily replied, still eyeing him warily while trying to look beyond him at Esme warning her two sons. I snapped my attention back to Jasper quickly given my other train of thought. "When is Alice coming back?" I asked. I was pretty sure I knew where she had gone. I just needed to know how much time I had to make the cakes on my own!

Jasper didn't falter in the slightest. In fact, he almost seemed to stand up straighter. "Not for a couple of hours. Rosalie wanted to go to some new store and Alice went with her," he smiled. I thought about this. That does seem plausible but then again, I'm dealing with _my_ vampires here….

"Which kind of cake do you like the best?" he asked. I looked him square in the eye. Something was definitely going on. Jasper was not one for conversation and was even less of one for the whole twenty questions gig. If it wasn't Alice playing conspirator, then it was definitely either Edward or Emmett. I didn't even want to think of what I was probably going to be involved in.

"Spice," I said simply. He looked perplexed at this answer as if he was trying to figure something out. Rather than asking another question, Esme saved me.

"Jasper?" she called out and he immediately lined up next to his brothers like a good soldier. I barely managed to hold back a giggle at the three tall men standing practically at attention in front of their mother.

Esme, hands on hips, looked at her boys. "I want to see this yard put back in perfect order before Carlisle gets home. Do you three understand?" she asked them.

I heard a tiny choir of "Yes'm"s and "Yes, Esme"s before Esme turned around to face me. She smiled and walked towards the trunk to get the two bags of groceries out. As soon as she turned around, Emmett added a "Love you, Mom!" Esme just rolled her eyes as she grabbed the bags. But even I could tell she loved hearing that.

"Ready to make the cakes, dear?" she asked me. I nodded and followed her back into the house. The house was still, miraculously, clean inside. It looks like my beloved Edward and his brothers managed to limit their destruction range to the now chopped up front lawn.

As Esme placed the bags down on the island counter and pulled the various ingredients out of the bags, I looked at the cabinets. "Esme?" I asked looking around the kitchen.

"Yes?" she replied as she carefully refolded the paper bags and placed them in the tiny space between the fridge and the wall.

"Where are the mixing bowls?" I asked. I saw the metal one right there with the super deluxe ultra hi-tech mixer on the counter. However, I simply wanted to be well…simple and stir it all up by hand. What's the fun of making a cake if you have a machine do pretty much everything for you?

Esme went to one of the cabinets near the sink and pulled down one bowl that was clearly older than me from it's etched glass sides and another that I'm pretty sure was relatively new. I walked over to grab the relatively new one and put it on the center island.

"We'll need spoons and measuring cups too, won't we?" Esme more stated than asked as she pulled two wooden spoons from a small container near the sink and handed one to me. I smiled in thanks and watched as she went to one of the drawers and pulled out a metal ring of spoons. She pulled out another ring too but it looked slightly…bent? Like someone had all the spoons in their hand and squeezed them a bit too tight. The finger widths looked too small to be Emmett. Maybe….Edward?

"Is it alright is we use only one set of measuring spoons?" Esme turned with the good set gingerly in her hand and asked me.

"That's fine, Esme," I told her. It wasn't like the oil used for one cake mix was really going containment the next cake mix or anything.

She smiled and walked next to me, hugging my shoulders slightly. I smiled back up at her. "So what do we do first?" Esme asked looking at the bowls, spoons, cake pans, and ingredients lying before us.

"Well, first we need to decide which one to start on and pour the mix into the bowl," I told her. I looked at the three cake mixes before us. Jeopardy had easier questions than this.

"Why don't we start with the chocolate?" she asked me, picking up the yummy rich chocolate box. I could smell the lovely temptation that is chocolate as she opened the box. Chocolate…..

"Good idea," I told her as I went to grab the oil we would need relatively soon.

Esme pulled out the bag of cake mix and looked at it thoughtfully. Before I could say anything she, luckily, whipped out a pair of scissors –from where, I don't know – and cut the top of the bag, carefully pouring the powdery mix into the pretty purple bowl.

I measured out the oil to put in while Esme read the back of the box. She quickly went and pre-heated the oven and then grabbed a couple of eggs before I could even really check the amount of oil I had in the little plastic lid.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as Esme looked at one of the eggs in her hand, looked at the bowl, and re-read the directions on the box. I had no idea what she was thinking and slightly wondered where Edward was.

I poured the ½ cup of oil into the mix while Esme went to tap the egg on the counter to break it. Instead of a couple of taps and breaking apart the egg over the bowl, the egg broke completely apart all over the counter and the floor. Esme looked horrified. "Oh, I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I didn't get any on you, did I?" she asked.

I looked at the icky, goockie, egg that was slowly dripping on to the floor. The only reason I was not laughing was due to Esme's mortified expression. It took me a moment to realize that she was more worried about me than the floor. "No, Esme," I told her as I went to grab the paper towels. Vampires use paper towels a lot…or at least they do at the Cullen household given the boys' magical ability to track mud through out an entire house and not really look like they had the slightest bit on them. I've seen it…once. It was really funny.

Esme had her head down, embarrassed, when I turned around. "Don't worry," I told her. "If it had been me, I bet I would have also slipped and hit my head against the island in the process!" I tried to joke with her. It wasn't that far from the truth. I, Bella Swan, could very easily get a concussion from the simply act of trying to break an egg. It was, unfortunately, entirely possible.

"Oh, Bella, sweetheart, I'm so sorry," Esme practically pleaded with me. She looked like she was crying except vampires can't produce tears. I knew why, of course, she was so upset. I've seen this before with Edward. The egg was breakable. I am breakable. Therefore, since she smushed the egg, she might just smush me. I guess it's a good thing I kind of smush myself on an almost hourly basis….

"Esme, it's alright. Honest," I told her as she very carefully, like she was afraid to even touch me, took the paper towels from me to clean up the egg that was now mostly on the floor. "I've broken eggs kind of like that before. It happens," I told her. Well, it was exactly like _that_ given that I am a weak little human but I have tapped the egg too hard before and gotten egg shell into whatever I was making at the time. Trying to pull every little bit of eggshell out anything is a pain.

"Really?" she asked with the smallest bit of hope in her voice.

"Uh huh," was my brilliant response. Before I could even grab another towel to help clean up, the kitchen was, once again, immaculate. So, instead, I smiled at her as she walked past me to throw the towels and egg away.

Esme walked at a human pace over to me this time and stood a few inches away, timidly this time. I knew she wouldn't hurt me and it annoyed me a bit to see the woman who was a mother figure to me be so scared to touch me now. Rather than say anything, I handed her another egg. I was going to prove to her that she could do this.

"Bella, I think you should do this," she told me carefully.

"But I need your help, Esme. Please?" I asked. Given the size of the kitchen and the wonderful excess of cake pans I now had access too, I didn't really _need_ help but I did _want_ help. The difference was so small sometimes that it didn't really count as lying.

In all honesty, it probably really wasn't lying at all. I hadn't seen Renee in a while now and it was simply nice to be around a "Mom". I loved Esme and her worrying. She not only worried –and corrected- her own "children", of whose average age was somewhere around 100, but she also worried and cared for me. I had seen that and it was just, well, nice to have that "Mom worry" rather than "Best friend worry" or "Jealous Vampire Sweetheart worry". I needed Esme and her help right now.

Gingerly, she took the egg I offered from my hand. She watched me carefully and I cracked my own egg on the edge of the bowl and broke the shell in half, empty the whites and yoke into the mix. I then watched as Esme broke her own egg on the side of the bowl and did the same thing. She looked up at me, her butterscotch eyes happy again. "I'll take that for you, dear," she said, indicating the now semi smushed egg shell I had in my hand.

"Oh, thanks."

I wiped my hands on one of the towels and went to throw that away as well. Esme turned and smiled at me. "After we add the water, do you want to mix it up or do you want to use the mixer?" she asked, point to the ultra high tech machine that, of course, came in a color to match the kitchen perfectly.

"Do you mind if I mix it up?" I asked.

"Not at all, dear," she told me as she filled the measuring cup with water. She was now moving at too fast for human speed but not too so fast that I couldn't see her. I grabbed a spoon while she poured the water in. I wasn't really slow at mixing but I wasn't exactly as fast as can be either.

While I was stirring the cake mix to hopefully get an un-lumpy, smooth chocolate batter, Esme watched as if she was studying everything I was doing. "Do make cakes often with your Mom?" she asked me after about 30 seconds of silence.

"Well, sometimes," I told her. Honestly, Renee's cooking experiments were far better as a one woman show. Helping with any of those were uh, interesting.

"What kinds of cakes do you make with Renee?" Esme asked as she picked up the butter to grease one of the cake pans with.

"Umm, well," I stuttered. How can I explain to someone who doesn't really eat that Renee tends to make things that are indigestible by the rest of the human population? "Renee likes to come up with her own creations," I managed to get out. Own creations…or trying to recreate things she saw in a magazine when she wasn't even sure what the ingredients were.

"Oh, like what?" Esme asked, interested now. I continued to stir the batter. It was getting smoother. "Once she tried to make a dark chocolate cherry cake," I informed her. Tried being the operative word. I guess Esme heard that though…

"Tried?"

"Well, ummm, yeah," I once again started out. I sounded like a broken iPod! "You see, she didn't really have directions or a recipe," I began to explain as I finished mixing the batter. It was nice and smooth looking chocolate. Esme gently took the bowl from me to pour the batter into the cake pan. She looked at me as she poured, encouraging me to continue.

"So she got one of the mixes like this and just dumped an entire jar of macchiato cherries in. Juice and all," I remembered. I had to smile at the look on my Mom's face when she saw her creation. It was completely hysterical; not that I would laugh at her…well, okay. Maybe if Phil laughed first.

Esme puckered her lips together in thought as she transferred the cake pan to the oven. "That didn't work?" she asked. Her tone indicated that even she knew that couldn't work right.

I sat back on one of the bar stools around the island and put my finger in what little was left of the chocolate batter. I quickly licked it off. Chocolate cake batter is really good stuff. "No, we kind of ended up with a soupy burnt mix of what looked like a really bad fruitcake," I smiled. Wait, do vampires know what fruitcake is? I guess they must given the amount of jokes there are about them. And I have a feeling either Jasper or Emmett have at least thought about entering the annual fruitcake tossing contest in early January.

Esme's gentle laugh filled the kitchen and I grinned in response. We worked on the yellow cake mix next. I told her I wanted to do a layer cake with the white so that would be best to do last. We could fit the yellow cake in next to the chocolate cake right now and knock two cakes out easily. Maybe this whole cakewalk thing really is easy.

Once the yellow cake was in the oven too, thanks to Esme's help, she turned to me. "Why don't you go play with the boys and I'll call you when the cakes are ready?" she asked me while giving me a quick hug.

"Okay, thanks Esme," I told her. I got off the barstool, licking some of the yellow cake batter off my fingers now, and went to find Edward. I found it curious that he hadn't interrupted me and Esme. I knew they were up to something, but what?

* * *

**Author's note: **Oh no! What is the rest of the gang planning? Can Esme save Bella from the grand Vampire Conspirarcy? Is there even one? I should be able to update in the next couple of days...hopefully. See y'all soon!


	3. Audiatur

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** First of all, not mine. Not in the least. The only things I own are a nice little townhome, a dog, and a ridiculous amount of Hard Rock Café Teddy Bears. Although, if it has the Cullen Crest on it, I like to at least think it's mine.

**Summary:** Pure fluff. With extra fluff. This is slightly out of sequence with the stories but it basically somewhere in Eclipse. I wanted to do a Mother/Daughter fluff scene with Bella and Esme making a cake. The only reason I could come up with for Bella making a cake was to have a fund raiser of some sort so...hence the Senior Trip that never happened in the books! Unless it's one to Italy....hehehe....

**Author's Note:** Okay, I am determined to make this story shorter than my deep, scary, OMG! It's werewolves in the 17th c! story…but ummm...I keep thinking of the hysterical stuff that the Cullen kids might have attempted and it's just too much fodder for the writer. So without further ado…

* * *

Chapter Three

I was still licking the yellow cake batter off my fingers as I walked from the kitchen into the living room. I didn't even register much more than Esme's humming from behind me when I was swept up by a very large hand shaped rock. "Hi, Bella!" I heard the rock, also known as Emmett, say as he swung me around in a hug.

"Emmett!" I managed to say with an indication that I wanted down. Being swung around the room faster than my truck could go was making me nauseous.

"Oh, sorry, Bella," he said while holding back his laughter – for once! – as I barely managed to remain semi-steady on my feet. As I gazed around the room, slowly keeping my stomach down where it should be, I noticed Jasper standing over near the back window, smiling. Emmett had a similar smile of his own.

"What's up?" I asked the two Cullen men before me. They were planning something, I just knew it!

"We want to know if…" Jasper started but Edward came running down the steps, took me out of Emmett's reach and wrapped his arms around me protectively.

"No," Edward said simply to his two brothers. Both of their faces only grew into bigger smiles. My vampire sweetheart let out a soft growl in warning to his brothers as his kissed the top of my head.

"Oh, come on, Edward!" Jasper said as he approached us.

"Please, Edward? We want Bella to help!" Emmett nearly begged. It was interesting to see what a big teddy bear he looked like when he wanted something.

"Help with what, guys?" I asked looking from one to the other. Neither responded; unless grinning like an idiot was considered a response.

I pulled away from Edward slightly and looked to him for an answer. He shrugged, holding my hand in his. "I'm not entirely sure," he told me. "That one," he said indicating Emmett "is playing the entire _Dark Side of the Moon_ album to the _Wizard of Oz_ in his head." Edward turned slightly and looked down at me, smiling.

"And that one," he gestured towards Jasper, never breaking eye contact with me, "is singing _Macnamara's Band_ to block me."

"What's Macnamara's Band?" both Emmett and I asked. Well, I asked and Emmett just repeated the title of the song questioningly. I looked at Emmett and he looked just as confused as I was. Good. For once there is something that at least one vampire and I don't know. Stupid all knowing…

I was brought out of my train of thought by Edward's velvet voice. "It was a very popular song a while ago," he mused as he re-wrapped his arms around my waist.

"How long ago?" Emmett asked. "I don't remember it," he told his two brothers. If Emmett didn't remember it and both Jasper and Edward did, it must have been a very long time ago.

Edward shrugged. "A while ago," he told his brother again.

Emmett's face twisted as he thought. It was honestly cute; like a Winnie the Pooh cute. I wondered if Emmett knew the whole I'm just a little black rain cloud song… Jasper's smirk brought me out of that train of thought. Although whether he was smirking at me or Emmett…or both, I'm not sure.

"How does it go?" Emmett asked, still, probably, trying to remember the song.

Edward sighed. "I have it upstairs if you like. But I do expect this album to be returned in pristine condition," he warned him. I think I heard about a few of the other destroyed records and cd's before. I almost swear I heard Esme mutter something in the kitchen about only needing one or two more broken records to re-tile the bathroom…..

"I'd like to hear it too, Edward," I told him. I wanted to know what the heck this song was that Jasper had running through his head. I knew what the Pink Floyd album was and the whole Wizard of Oz thing that Emmett had been thinking about.

Both Jasper, and especially Emmett's, smiles grew again. "Great!" Emmett said clapping his hands together. He then turned to Edward and looked at him expectantly.

Exasperated, Edward gently let go of me and took my hand. "Fine," he said in defeat. It seemed to be about a lot more than just letting Emmett and myself hear some old record.

So the parade of the four of us, Emmett, Edward, myself, and Jasper, went up to Edward's room to listen to this strange song. I really had no idea what to expect. The title, Macnamara's Band, didn't sound really like something I'd expect Jasper to like. Not that I even knew what the song was about or how it sounded.

Of course, by the third step on the stairs, Edward decided that human speed wasn't fast enough and carried me the rest of the way. My stomach did not thank him but managed to stay down. I clutched his hand, tightly as I could, knowing it wouldn't hurt him in the slightest, as we all walked into his room.

I sat on his black leather sofa while Edward went to the wall of records and cd's to find the one he wanted. Emmett sat on the floor next to me while Jasper propped himself up against the wall near the doorway. It took less than half a second for Edward to find the record – which looked really old by the thin paper cover- and put it on the turntable.

The music blared happily out of the speakers. Emmett and I both looked at each other. The song started out with horns and beeping and pure…silliness. By the time the guy started to sing Emmett was in hysterics and I wasn't too far from it myself. I looked at Jasper, "This is what you were thinking?"

"Yeap," he responded with a smile. Jasper folded his arms over his chest as he took in Emmett and me laughing. Edward simply shook his head.

"Hey, Bella!" Emmett said to get my attention while the song was still playing.

"Yeah?"

"You know what would be really cool?" Emmett asked me, his eyes dancing.

I looked to Edward who was pinching the bridge of his nose, but smiling. Whatever Emmett had planned, it wasn't harmful to my health…. "No, what?" I asked.

"Kazoos!!!!!" Emmett shouted. With that, he sped off to who knows where. I heard Jasper say a "Oh no" and watched as his face fell. I, on the other hand, figured out exactly what Emmett was thinking. This song, to kazoos? It would be very funny and perfectly harmless. That combo made it Edward approved, at least in my case.

Emmett came back in with four metal kazoos that I think were about as old as my truck. The kazoos were in better condition though. Carefully, Emmett picked out a pink one from his left hand and handed it to me. "Here you go, Bella!" he said happily.

"Thanks, Emmett!"

He offered the kazoos to the other two and, amazingly, Jasper took the green one. Edward only shook his head; his fingers had yet to leave the bridge of his nose. It was only a couple of more seconds before the three of us were happily humming into our kazoos the ridiculous song. I kind of wonder if Jasper was simply thinking this song to annoy Edward.

Esme came upstairs and stood in the doorway with a dish towel on her arm. She laughed at the site of two of her children and me happily being well, silly.

"Hey, Esme! Do you want to play too?" Emmett asked her. He got up to offer her the fourth kazoo.

"No, thank you, sweetheart. I think you are doing very well without me," she said while she held back her laughter. Jasper and I were having a lot of fun humming along as we demanded for Edward to play the song again. After all, we needed to start with the kazoos from the beginning, right?

Edward looked at me, amused and rolled his eyes at his brother. He pushed himself against the shelves and leaned back watching us.

"Hennessey Tennessee toddles the flute while I the pipes do play," the sound system blared. All three of us resumed our kazoo playing during the little bridge of the song. Once it was over, I handed back the kazoo to Emmett.

"Thanks, Emmett. That was fun," I told him sincerely as I gave back the kazoo to him.

He grinned and shook his head. "No, you can keep it," he told me.

"Thanks." Emmett must have thought something else because, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Edward's expression change. It wasn't upset in the least bit, it was more of…surprised, maybe? But pleasantly so.

"That was a wonderful performance," Esme told us. Which got a snicker out of Edward. Which got a semi-glare out of Esme. Which, of course, got a laugh out of Emmett. And that lead to a grin out of Jasper. I was starting to understand this whole sibling-parents dynamics stuff…I think.

"Are the cakes doing okay?" I asked Esme, getting up from the sofa. I walked over to her and knew the cakes still had at least a good 20 minutes in the oven. After that, it would be a good hour before I could ice them.

"They're fine, dear," she told me.

"Bella?" Emmett said, immediately getting my attention. I heard Edward groan from the other side of the room.

"Yeah?" I responded, looking at him while standing near Esme. Jasper was right next to Emmett, clearly in on whatever he was going to ask.

"Can you help us make a cake?" Emmett asked. Both his and Jasper's eyes were pleading. Edward has his nose pinched again and I could almost feel Esme's eyes narrow at her boys.

"Ummm, why?" I asked curiously. Why would two vampires, who were NOT currently in school, need a cake? It didn't make any sense. Of course, Jasper's questioning earlier didn't make any sense but I have a feeling the two things are related. I bet Rosalie's and Alice's "shopping trip" is even related. It's a conspiracy. Why cake is involved….I just hope I don't find out.

"Please?" both their voices pleaded.

"Boys, what are you up to?" Esme asked, gently pulling me back to her by the shoulder.

"We just need a cake, Esme," Jasper said, acting innocent.

"Yeah, and Bella can help us! Right?" Emmett once again pleaded with me with his teddy bear eyes. Ugh! Stupid dazzling vampires…

"Fine," I said. I got two "yes!"s and one groan.

"We need to go back to the store then, I guess," I told the two boys. "We'll need another cake mix." What was I thinking? Four cakes in one day?!? Oh the things I get into…

"Nope," Jasper said proudly. "We already got cake mix."

I eyed the two speculatively. "What kind of cake mix?" I asked them. I hope they didn't get one of those weird kinds that you have to add flavoring too or something like that.

"There's more than one kind?" Emmett questioned. He was clearly surprised by this information.

"Milk chocolate," Jasper stated.

"Okay," I told them. I looked down to think. "Did you get icing?" I asked. If not, then we'd still have to go to the store. Yes, I could make buttermilk icing from scratch but I seriously doubt that they kept powdered sugar around here.

"No," they both answered. Jasper's face fell as he realized he had gotten something wrong. Emmett simply continued on, "What do we need for icing? Jasper and I can get it!" He almost sounded like a little kid begging someone older to let him do it himself.

"Well, you can just buy a can or you can get powdered sugar so we can make it from scratch," I informed them.

"Alright!" Emmett boomed. Three sets of gold eyes and my own set of brown stared at him.

"I umm," he started as he took in a sudden interest with Edward's carpet, "have some powdered sugar in my room."

"Why?" Edward asked incredulously. We were all thinking the same thing.

"Well, I was reading," Emmett started. Both Edward and Jasper smirked at that earning another glare from Esme. "Boys," she warned before motioning for Emmett to continue. He grumbled something too low for my ears to hear before he did.

"And I read about how people back in Carlisle's time use to put powder their wigs with flour and stuff," Emmett continued. We were all confused.

"And well, I read about how they had whole _rooms_ devoted to just pour powder down on people's head," he stated. Edward pinched his nose again. It was a good thing he wasn't human because he'd so have a permanent bruise right at the bridge of his nose if he was. "Emmett," he said, exasperated again.

Esme looked worried. Jasper looked confused like me. "Well, if we need it for this project instead, Edward, that's fine. I won't do what I was planning," Emmett said in a huff.

"What were you planning?" Esme asked her son, concerned now.

Emmett turned to look at her. He reached back with his hand and scratched the back of his neck. It was clear he was embarrassed. "Well, I figured it might be a great April Fool's joke to set up Carlisle's study like one of those powder rooms but to use sugar instead and all because, you know, it's sticky," he more asked the last part then stated. Emmett knew he was in trouble.

Esme's hand went to cover her heart. "Emmett McCarthy Cullen! Why on earth would you do such a thing?" she asked. I don't think she really wanted an answer. Even I knew it was simply because well, Emmett was Emmett. And considering some of the things he could have thought up, powdered sugar all over Carlisle's study, although messy, was pretty tame.

"Well, I'm not going to _now_, Mom," he pretty much whined. Edward smirked. "Besides, Bella says we need the powdered stuff to make icing so it worked out, right?" Emmett asked her.

"I do not want you to ever try something like that," Esme warned. "Any of you," she quickly amended.

Another series of "Yes'm" s and "Yes, Mom"s echoed in Edward's room. Esme turned to me, "Bella, dear. The cakes should be done in about twenty minutes, alright?" I nodded in response. She looked at her sons over my shoulder. "If they bother you, just tell me. I'll make sure they behave," she informed me but I think it was more of a warning to the boys.

The room was silent for about two seconds after Esme left. Then I heard a collective groan. I turned to my three vampires and looked at them curiously. Edward was immediately at my side and had his arms around me. The other two gazed out the window towards the driveway.

"It's Alice and Rosalie. They're back," Edward whispered into my hair.

My eyes went wide. "I don't want to play dress up," was my only response.

* * *

**Author's note:** I hope y'all liked this chapter. It's a bit shorter than the other ones (only 14 pages double spaced this time!!) but I wanted to get up to Alice and Rosalie's reappearance. If anyone is curious about the song; Macnamara's Band did make it to the top ten list....in 1917. Or there abouts. Don't ask how I know... I will admit, it is an awesome song to play the kazoo too. I think I still have my old red plastic one somewhere.... If you want to hear it, I suggest the Spike Jones version on you tube. It's a bit different from the 1917 version I learned but it's still kazoo worthy.


	4. Bellum Bella

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** First of all, not mine. Not in the least. The only things I own are a nice little townhome, a dog, and hopefully a truck by the end of the week. The one I want is yellow. I'm so naming it Alice.

**Summary:** Pure fluff. With extra fluff. This is slightly out of sequence with the stories but it basically somewhere in Eclipse. I wanted to do a Mother/Daughter fluff scene with Bella and Esme making a cake. The only reason I could come up with for Bella making a cake was to have a fund raiser of some sort so...hence the Senior Trip that never happened in the books!

It's slowly turning into an entire Family Fluff scene. What was supposed to be two chapters is starting to look like it will be six or more. Me and my silly ideas…

* * *

Chapter 4

I buried my head into Edward's chest, savoring the last few seconds I would have before I had to go play beauty shop. I knew what would happen. Alice and Rosalie would come upstairs and put their bags away. Alice would, a minute after they arrived in the house, come up to Edward's room, kidnap me, and dress me up like her favorite doll. It was pointless to even try and put up a fight. I'd pout anyways.

Edward whispered into my hair, "I won't let her take you." I just pouted in response. I knew that even Edward could not save me from Alice. She'd guilt trip him just like she'd guilt trip me. She was very good at that. I think it was a secondary talent.

"Damn right! We will save you from the clutches of evil Alice," Emmett announced. I turned slightly just in time to see Jasper punch Emmett on the arm. "Hey!" Emmett said to his brother. "I'm just saying…"he continued, now re-taking up his interest in the floor.

Jasper seemed to think for a moment. At this point, even I could hear the sounds of the car pulling up the gravel road. As a smile slowly spread on Jasper's face, Edward gently released me and went over to his two brothers. "Gentlemen, I believe we have a mission," Jasper said. Edward and Emmett both looked like two good little soldiers suddenly in front of Major Jasper Whitlock Hale. I felt a small smile pull at my lips as I sat down on the floor to watch this unfold.

Jasper paced, slowly, in front of his two brothers. "Our mission," Jasper started. Emmett had to pipe in "If you choose to accept it!" That got him an elbow from Edward. Jasper ignored them. "Is to protect Bella from the enemy," he said before turning to his…er…men.

"I realize that the very beloved enemies in this case will cause us more problems later on," he said sadly. Looking at Emmett –who was hanging his head- Jasper put a hand on his shoulder. "I know this will be hard on you, given that one of the enemies is your own wife," he told him softly. "It will be hard on me too given my relationship with the other little imp," he said, releasing Emmett's shoulder. Edward grinned. I let out a small giggle…until I heard the car doors closing.

Worriedly, I looked towards the windows. Not that I could see anything given that I was still very much on the floor. In fact, I was sitting down on the third floor so I could only see the very green, very wet leaves of the trees outside the window. Alice would be here any minute.

Jasper continued, "We will not allow either of the enemies to capture and torture Bella. We know our enemies tactics. We know the stubborn will-power that feeds Rosalie and we know exactly how Alice will attempt to use anything she can to her advantage. We must remain strong, men, in the face of these two exceptional adversaries."

I watched as Jasper slowly walked over to me. "Don't worry Bella. We will protect you from curling irons and charmeuse silk dresses," he told me, a smile clearly playing behind his serious façade.

"Thank you," I whispered. It was Edward who gently pulled me up from the floor and pulled me behind him. I knew that the girls had made it into the house by now and was scared that, despite the words, Major Jasper and his men would crumble at the site of Rosalie's glares and Alice's guilt trip. Of course, that was assuming Rosalie would help Alice in her mission. Something told me she would if for no other reason then to annoy me.

The boys…err…soldiers gathered in front of Edward's doorway. I stayed behind them. In all honesty, I wasn't that scared of playing dress up. I did like how I typically turned out. Also, I didn't want the Emmett or Jasper to suffer for going up against their wives but at the same time, the boys seemed to enjoy playing war…a lot. And who was I to put up the white flag and hand myself over to the enemy? I couldn't ruin their fun.

It was incredibly quiet before a small blur of white danced into Edward's room. Another blur stopped at the doorway. Rosalie looked directly at Emmett and glared. Alice, on the other hand, attempted to break through the front line by simply going around them. It was a futile attempt. Jasper, who was closest to her, stepped quickly in front of her.

Alice looked up at the blond Cullen boy confused. "No, Alice," he told her firmly. Those were two words I never thought I'd hear out of Jasper's mouth in the direction of Alice. It was shocking to say the least.

Alice's eyes narrowed. She knew our plans. She knew the decisions we had all made…and probably a few we were going to make. She looked to me and then to Edward, and finally to Jasper. Her eyes went from a menacing stare to sweet and forlorn. "All I want to do is play with Bella," she said sadly.

Those doe filled eyes turned to me. I swear, if she could, she would so be cranking out the tears. "Don't you want to play with me, Bella?" she asked with such pain written across her face, I almost surrendered right then.

"Aww, Alice," I started. Jasper turned his head to me. "Don't give in Bella! Stand your ground!" the Major ordered. Immediately, I stood a little straighter. My guess was that Jasper was playing with my emotions and sent a slight bit of confidence my way. I'd have to thank him later.

I tried to think of a way out of this without getting random glares from Alice for the next week. "I need to make cakes today. They aren't anywhere close to done," I told her. Her eyes began to narrow. There had to be a way out of this! I smiled to myself as I thought up the perfect excuse; or at least, I thought it was perfect.

"Alice," I started. I looked at her sweetly. Heck, it worked on everyone else it seemed when I tried really hard to be well, cute. "I just don't want to ruin all your hard work when I just have to go back downstairs and finish the other cakes," I told her. "I'll get flour all over the place and icing too." That should do it. The front line smiled as Alice scowled.

"Fine, you four win this battle," Alice said angrily. "But this is so not over," she told them. She stormed out of Edward's room motioning for Rosalie to follow. Rosalie had stood in the doorway the entire time, glaring down poor Emmett. Now that the battle was over, Emmett only hung his head, refusing to meet his wife's gaze. Rosalie turned and humphed down to the second floor.

Three pairs of golden eyes turned to me. Rather than being worried about the wrath of Alice and Rosalie, they all looked to be smiling. "Don't worry, Bella. Alice is going to go plan and then try to kidnap you. She isn't mad," Edward told me, his eyes dancing.

"Mad? She's wants to play as badly as we do!" Jasper informed us. This got a determined grin from Emmett.

"We are going to win this!" Emmett stated triumphantly.

It was about that time when their heads all turned back towards the door. I was worried until I heard Esme's voice call up "Bella?" I kind of heard something along the lines of "the cakes are done" but I wasn't sure. I managed to get out of Edwards grip on my hand and head at a hurried human pace to the stairs.

Honestly, I am surprised. I managed to make it down the first flight without a single problem. I almost made it down the second flight until that last stair. I tripped, on air of course, and fell face first into a….wall? I felt two familiar hands grab my elbows. "Hello, Bella," Carlisle said, amused. Once he was sure I was righted and wouldn't fall down, again, he let go.

"Hi, Carlisle," I mumbled, blushing. Emmett, of course, laughed.

Carlisle took in the scene before him. Myself and three of his children heading down the stairs to the kitchen. He raised an eyebrow in question at all of us. "We're making a cake!" Emmett stated.

"And we are conducting a reconnaissance mission," Jasper told him seriously. I'm pretty sure Edward just shook his head and smiled at the unheard questions Carlisle had in his head. I sighed, exasperated. I did not like the conversations that I couldn't even hear.

After only a few seconds, Carlisle looked back at me, a smile tugging at his lips. "Go on, Bella. Esme is waiting," he said trying very hard not to laugh.

I quickly went around him and managed to enter the kitchen. Edward, Jasper, and Emmett were hot on my heels. Esme was just opening the oven to take out the cakes. "Did you check them?" I asked as I went to hop up on the barstool.

"Check them?" Esme questioned, stopping herself from pulling out the two very yummy smelling cakes.

"Yeah, you have to stick a toothpick or a knife into the cakes first to make sure they are done all the way," I told her as I hopped back down and managed to move through the boys, around the island, and over to the oven.

Esme moved to let me stab the two cakes carefully. The chocolate was done but the yellow still had a few more minutes. "The chocolate is okay but we should leave the yellow in," I told her as I looked for an oven mitt. I wondered if vampires even needed oven mitts. They probably did given the whole fire/burnt to a crisp kills a vampire thing.

Esme had an oven mitt already on her hand. She quickly pulled the chocolate cake out placed it on a hot plate on the counter. I closed the oven door and turned to the cake before me. Esme gently squeezed my shoulders. "What kind of icing do you want to put on it?" she asked.

"Probably the vanilla but we need to wait until the cake is room temperature," I told her. She nodded in response.

"Do you actually eat that?" Emmett said, his nose all crinkled up.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Chocolate cake is a great human food," I informed him. He just looked at me as if my hair had suddenly turned neon pink with green stripes.

"You are not going to survive this," Jasper said to him. I looked at Jasper, and then Emmett. My mind went back to the fact they wanted to make their own cake with me helping. There was still something else going on here.

"I will pummel you, Jasper," Emmett replied.

"Boys," Esme warned. She gave the mother stare. I know that stare. Every child knows _that_ stare. It's the I-am-Mom-and-can-make-your-life-miserable stare. Renee gave it to me a couple of times, or at least tried. It's not fun to be on the receiving end of that stare.

They both got quiet for all of a second. Then Emmett started to very gently touch the cake. "Emmett!" I yelled at him, getting a couple of giggles from the others in the room.

"What?" he asked back, still bouncing his finger lightly off and on the cake.

"Stop that!" I automatically smacked his hand away. Of course, all it got me was more laughter and a throbbing hand. I shook it and glared at him. Emmett did move his hand away from the cake, but only to grin playfully menacing at me.

"Emmett! Bella! Remember our goal here," Jasper said back in Major mode. I just looked at him and Emmett sighed.

"We need to keep the enemy at bay," Jasper reminded me. Oh, right. Alice just finished shopping and wants to dress me up like I'm a paper doll.

"Enemy?" Esme whispered worriedly.

"Alice and Rosalie," Edward told Esme off-handedly. "They want to kidnap Bella," he said as he picked up one of the spoons that was still on the counter to play with. Esme visibly relaxed.

"They are going to torture her! With hair dryers!" Emmett told Esme, trying his hardest to sound alarmed.

"And they are going to force all sorts of paints on her face," Jasper told his mom solemnly. Esme bit back her laughter.

I crossed my arms and huffed. "It's not funny," I grumbled, not at all amused by this. Edward quickly came around and wrapped his arms back around me. "Don't worry, love. We won't let them get you," he told me. I relaxed instantly thanks to Edward. Jasper smirked again.

I glared at him and Emmett again. "If you two think it's so funny," I started, still in the safety of Edward's arms. "Then you can bake your cake yourselves with no help from me," I told them. Leverage, ha!

Both their faces fell instantly. "Please, Bella, you've got to help us!" Emmett begged me.

"We'll protect you from Rose and Alice," Jasper told me. "But we really do need your help," he added.

I eyed the pair warily. "Fine," I told them. They both instantly smiled again. Jasper looked to Edward. "Edward, I need you to search and hold on to Alice's position. See if you can find out what she's planning," the Major began. Edward was clearly conflicted on leaving me. "We've got her," Jasper told him.

"Yeah, besides, Esme will help us! Right, Mom?" Emmett asked her, trying to persuade her to join our side of this mini war.

Esme thought for a moment. We all looked up to her, hoping she would join us. I really hoped she wouldn't remain neutral, or worse, join the other side. This was too important to me and I needed my second mother on my side. I would not play Extreme Makeover today. I just wouldn't!

"If it's to protect Bella, yes," she said carefully followed by a bunch of joyous shouts.

"Thanks, Esme," Edward said before kissing me on the forehead and going to find Alice. I watched after him longingly getting another roar of laughter from Emmett and another smirk from Jasper. Esme simply put her arm over my shoulders. "Do you want to start on the white cake?" she asked.

"Can we start on our cake?" Emmett asked hopefully. I bit my bottom lip, trying to decide. Should I work with Esme on the cake I need to get done for the cakewalk or should I work on the cake that my two soon to be brothers so want my help with?

"Why don't you work on the cake with the boys?" Esme mused. "We can always work on the white cake tomorrow. The fair isn't until Friday, right dear?" she asked to make sure.

"Thanks, Esme," I told her sincerely. I didn't have to decide. I'd help the boys and still get to spend time with Esme tomorrow.

"That means you'll help us right now?" Emmett asked hopefully.

"Go get the powdered sugar for the icing. I don't want to forget about it," I told him, nodding in response to his question.

"Yes!" he boomed and bounded out of the kitchen. He was up the stairs in a flash.

I turned to Jasper. "Where's the cake mix you got?" I asked him.

"Right over here," he said, going to the pantry to pull the solitary box of cake mix out. The pantry was pretty bare given that the only other thing in there was my instant hot chocolate and a bag of chips. Jasper placed it on the island across from me.

Esme got out a new mixing bowl. I wasn't sure but it looked older than Charlie, which meant I wasn't about to touch it. It would shatter, I would get cut, it would cause chaos, and Esme would be devastated that one of her antiques was gone forever. I couldn't do that to Esme.

Emmett came back with three boxes of powdered sugar. "Is this enough?" he asked me.

"We really only need one box so that's fine," I informed him. I looked both of the Cullen boys before me. "Okay, do you two really want to make a cake?" I asked them just to make sure.

"Yes'm," I heard Jasper say.

"Duh, Bella," was Emmett's reply. That got him a stern look from Esme. "Emmett!"

He looked back at me sheepishly, "Sorry, Bella."

"Well, then you two are going to make the cake," I told them, holding back a smile. "I'm simply going to give you the instructions and you'll have to do all the mixing, stirring, and baking."

Emmett looked a bit surprised but Jasper immediately went into Major Whitlock mode. He was going to take this as a soldier getting orders. Emmett picked up on that and straightened up too.

"So ummm, what do we do first?" Emmett asked.


	5. Qui docent discit

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** First of all, not mine. Not in the least. The only things I own are a nice little townhome, a dog, and hopefully a truck by the end of the week. Turns out my sister in law knows someone who paints cars. This means that no matter what color I end up getting, it will so be painted yellow. I don't even have a new truck yet and it's already got a name of Alice.

**Summary:** Pure fluff. With extra fluff. This is slightly out of sequence with the stories but it basically somewhere in Eclipse. I wanted to do a Mother/Daughter fluff scene with Bella and Esme making a cake. The only reason I could come up with for Bella making a cake was to have a fund raiser of some sort so...hence the Senior Trip that never happened in the books!

It's slowly turning into an entire Family Fluff scene. What was supposed to be two chapters is starting to look like it will be six or more. Me and my silly ideas…

**Author's Note: **Wow! Thanks for all the reviews, favs, and alerts! I'm really touched that so many people seem to like my random bit of fluff.

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Chapter 5

Standing there with Esme at my side and two of the Cullen boys before me on the other side of the kitchen island only one thought was going through my head; Sleeping Beauty. I kept remembering that scene in the Disney movie where the three mythological creatures, who had tried for 16 years to act human for the sake of one human, try to bake a cake, clean a house, and sew a dress. I couldn't get the whole mythological creature making a cake and folding eggs into the batter out of my head. Emmett and Jasper would totally do that if left on their own. They would simply add the eggs, forgetting, or really not knowing to break them before adding them to the mix. Those egg shell bits would really be a pain to get out.

To prevent that little bit of fairy tale drama from coming to life with my own three mythological creatures, I was going to help bake a cake. I still didn't have a clue as to why Jasper and Emmett needed a cake. I only knew that they want to make one and asked for my help. Okay, fine but considering I already made two and had another one to make for the cakewalk I was not simply going to bake one for them. These two were going to make it themselves with instruction from me. Ha! A weak little human with power over two strong vampire men…yeah. Right.

"Normally, you'd preheat the oven first but that's covered," I informed Emmett. Pointing to the box, I told him, "Second you open the box and pour the powder mix inside into the bowl."

Emmett managed to tear open the box and looked like he was about to tear open the plastic bag. I was terrified of the chocolate cake powder mix getting all over everything. That would never come out of my hair. Alice would have to give me a makeover.

Luckily, Esme must have had the same thought. She handed Emmett a pair of scissors from out of nowhere. He just looked at them and then at Esme questioningly. "Sweetheart, if you pull the bag too much, you'll have to clean up the kitchen," she told him.

"Oh, right," Emmett said as he took the scissors and cut the top of the plastic bag carefully. He poured the contents into the mixing bowl.

"Thanks, Esme," I whispered, glad that I was not covered in chocolate cake mix at the moment. She smiled back at me.

Both Emmett and Jasper looked at me expectantly once the powder was in the mixing bowl. I decided to divvy up the ingredients to the boys would both be doing something for the cake. "Jasper?" I asked him. He stood a bit taller, awaiting his orders. "I want you to get the ½ cup of vegetable oil," I told him, pointing to the container on the counter.

"Yes'm," he answered and quickly went to his task. I turned to Emmett. "Emmett?"

"Yeah, Bella?" he asked, clearly excited about all this.

"I want you to get 1 ½ cup of water," I told him.

"Kay," he replied. In a blink of my eye both the boys were back at the mixing bowl, the oil and water now added to the mix. I blinked a couple of more times. Had they even moved? I realized they were both awaiting their next orders.

"Umm, you'll need two eggs too," I responded, my voice sounding a bit funny. Pictures of Meriwether danced through my head. "But you've got to break them into the bowl and make sure you don't get any egg shell in," I added quickly.

Each boy got an egg into their hands, respectively, before I could really finish saying anything. Both Emmett and Jasper looked at the eggs, looked at the bowl, and then looked at each other. Neither seemed to be able to figure out exactly how to break the egg. Before I could explain to them to simply tap very lightly on the side of the bowl, Esme interjected. "Maybe I should do that," she told them.

Jasper easily handed the egg over Esme, glad to get rid of it by the look on his face. He only gave me a sheepish grin. I couldn't be upset with him even though he didn't try. Given Esme earlier, I'm glad she wanted to do this again.

Emmett tried to hand his egg over to Esme too but must of clutched it too tight in his hand. "Oh, umm, opps," he said as the gloop that had been the egg squeezed out between his fingers. I sighed and handed him a paper towel. "Thanks, Bella," he said sadly.

"It's alright, dear," Esme told him. He hung his head slightly as Esme patted him on the shoulder. Both boys moved to give Esme some room. Emmett went over to the sink to wash his hand and get rid of the rest of the egg via the trash can. Vampires don't have food disposals.

"Come on, Emmett. You can watch Esme and see how she does it," I encouraged. He dried his hands, now taking up Esme's former spot next to me while Jasper stood just to the side of the mixing bowl.

Esme held Jasper's egg gingerly in her hand and with one swift but gentle thwack broke the egg and poured the whites and yoke into the bowl. Emmett looked amazed. Jasper looked like he was studying a science experiment.

Esme went to pick up the next egg when Jasper stopped her. "Can I try?" he asked tentatively.

"Of course, dear!" she told him happily and handed him the egg. Jasper held it in the palm of his hand, careful not to put any pressure on it. "The trick is to hit the edge of the bowl like you are tapping a window with the egg," Esme stated. I thought about this. It could work. I've seen them tap windows before. Of course, I've also seen them break windows before.

I was hoping that Jasper could do it. It was why I gave both boys an egg to begin with. It seemed rather funny to me that something so simple, so human, as breaking an egg, was a challenge to vampires. After all, everything else they seemed to be perfect at!

Jasper examined the egg carefully. Holding the egg studiously with his fingertips, I could tell he was taking this baking experiment far more seriously than I was. I tried to bite back a bit of laughter but failed. Jasper, luckily, ignored me. Esme sweetly smiled at me. Emmett grinned and whispered so low into my ear, I barely heard him, "$10 bucks says he splatters it everywhere."

I looked at Emmett. I knew, a bit too well, how much all my vampires liked to take and make bets. Normally I was the brunt of them. I was slightly surprised that Emmett wanted to make a bet with me, his favorite contestant on "Betting on Bella". But then I realized something; why Esme wanted to help me today, why the boys were playing war to protect me, and why Emmett was willing to make a bet with me; they wanted to spend time with their future daughter/sister in law. I smiled at Emmett, touched really, and nodded once in response. He was on. Jasper could do this.

We both eyes Jasper speculatively. He looked up at the two of us, raised one eyebrow at Emmett, and then redirected his attention back to the egg. This had been a very tense minute!

Slowly, Jasper lifted his hand that held the egg and then swiftly brought it down to the edge of the bowl. There was a very tiny crack in it's shell. I grinned. "Great, Jasper!" I told him. "Now just very gently push against that crack with your thumbs over the bowl and the make sure you don't get any of the shell in."

Jasper flashed a grin in my direction. I didn't have to be an empath like him to see the pride flowing off him. He did as I said and the second egg made it into the bowl.

"What's with you and egg shells?" Emmett asked, a slight hint of disappointment coloring his voice. I knew he didn't like loosing and now he owed me $10. Not that was exactly a lot of money to him. It would be like me betting a penny. It was all about the thought of loosing.

I shrugged. "They're sharp so they can cut, well, humans if we accidentally eat them and make the cake crunchy. Cake isn't supposed to me crunchy," I told him while making a face at the idea of a crunchy cake. That was just...gross. Cake was supposed to be squishy.

Emmett immediately looked at Jasper. "Thanks for not getting any egg shells in there," he said somberly, something I was amazed Emmett could do. He was normally always joking around! Jasper nodded in response, his face had become serious again. I had only one question in my mind; what were these two up to?

I bit my lip and looked at both of them. Should I ask about why they needed a cake? Or should I let the events unfold and just hope to be able to sit back on the sidelines and watch? Before I could make a decision, I felt a small breeze and then two icy white arms snake their way around me again. "Hi, Edward," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. Emmett rolled his eyes by the time Edward managed to say "Hello, Bella."

"Status report?" Jasper asked. Oh, right, we are at war with Alice and Rosalie. That's why Edward had left in the first place. I had forgotten about that there for a second.

"The enemy tried to come at me with a diversionary tactic. I was unable to decipher all their possible plans but I did uncover a bit of important information," Edward told us, amused. He gently squeezed me tighter to him. I was glad to be back in his arms.

Jasper raised an eyebrow at Edward, awaiting this bit of important information, whatever it was. Emmett was more vocal, "What?"

"Carlisle has joined the dark side," Edward stated, holding back a bit of laughter.

Esme's face changed. She couldn't tell whether to smile or frown at this bit of information. Her loving husband had sided with Alice! Alice who wanted to use me like her own human doll! Why would Carlisle side with Alice's team? Did he want me to be curled and forced into high heels? Id' break my leg and then he'd have to set it....again!

Emmett's laughter brought me out of my train of thought. "Awesome!" he said, pounding his fist slightly against the granite counter top. This caused some of the glass objects on it to cling together a bit.

"Emmett!" came a choir of disapproval. Emmett looked sheepish at the exclamations. "Sorry," he mumbled in apology.

Jasper took in Edward's uh, intelligence information. We all watched him pace back and forth until he seemed resigned about the situation. "We will reconfigure due to this intelligence later on. Thank you, Edward," the Major said.

"Of course," Edward responded and then kissed me on the head. I could tell he was holding back a chuckle.

"Bella, what do we need to do next?" Jasper asked. Both he and Emmett looked expectantly at me.

"Well, you need to mix all that together until it's smooth," I told them. Both boys looked at each other, and, what happened next, happened so fast, my mind barely registered it. I think I saw Emmett race over to a drawer on once side of the kitchen while Jasper went to a different drawer. They both ignored the perfectly good wooden spoon that Edward had been playing with earlier on the counter.

It looked like Emmett got to the mixing bowl first and was about to put the whisk he found into the bowl when Jasper snaked his way around Emmett and took the bowl from him. All I do know for sure is that a small bit of batter was left in the bowl and the rest was now on Jasper, Emmett, and the kitchen floor.

"Jasper! Emmett!" Esme shouted at them. Both boys stopped their mini fight right there in the kitchen and looked at the mess. Runny chocolate powder covered egg slipped off the counter and on to the floor. I let out a snicker and quickly bit my lip to stop from laughing more.

Both boys looked at Esme and then to the mess and then to the bowl. Once Emmett's eyes caught the bowl, he looked heartbroken. Jasper grimaced. "I want you two to clean up this mess, now," Esme ordered them. "Yes'm" I heard both the boys say as they slowly went to grab cleaning supplies. It looked like they were at a funeral!

Edward whispered into my hair, "Why don't we go out to the living room?" I think I said something like "that sounds nice," but I'm not sure. A part of me was just dazzled by the sound of Edward's velvety voice and another part of me was just so curious as to why this cake had been so important and why Emmett and Jasper both looked so upset by it's demise before it even got to be a cake.

Edward guided me out to living room while Esme supervised her sons cleaning up the kitchen. As we left the warm air of the kitchen and back into the living room, I suddenly remembered something else. The yellow cake! It was still in there! Quickly, I left Edward's side and went towards the oven. Four pairs of curious eyes watched me as I opened the oven door. It looked okay. I grabbed the butter knife I had left to the side of the oven so I could double check the cake. It came out clean this time. "Oh good," I breathed. I looked up at Esme to ask about the oven mitt but, before I could ask, she was already over and took the cake out of the oven. I closed the door again while she put the cake on another trivet.

Emmett looked up from his mopping of the floor to look at the cake Esme had just taken out and then looked over to the cake we took out a few minutes earlier. "How many different colors do they come in?" he asked, curiously. Edward rolled his eyes and groaned at his brother. Jasper smirked at the both of them as he cleaned the counter top. I noticed the mixing bowl was already perfectly clean and ready to be used again. Not that I would touch that one. Anything more than twice my age and made of glass was not to be trusted in my presence.

I shrugged. "Mainly chocolate brown, butter yellow, and white but you can really make them any color you want," I told him truthfully.

"Really?" he asked, stopping his swift cleaning of the floor. It actually already looked clean in the short 2 minutes since the cake mix stirring accident had occurred. It would have taken me forever to get that stuff up.

"Yeah, I mean, sometimes the colors are indicative of their flavors," I told him, holding back a smile. A part of me remembered a conversation Edward and I had about a year ago regarding eating choices being indicative of behavior. "Like strawberry cake is pink and chocolate cake is well," I started as I gestured to the cake before us, "Chocolate."

Both Jasper and Emmett nodded at this bit of information. They had put away their cleaning supplies and Esme looked happy that the kitchen was, once again, in perfect order. They really should start their own cleaning business, not that they needed the money or anything. I'd love to get a kitchen cleaned in only two minutes though after a mess like that! Oh well, only a few more months until graduation...

"A sometimes you can just add food coloring and that will change the color of the cake," I told them.

"Food coloring?" Jasper asked, taking in this bit of information. I wondered why this was so important to them.

"Yeah, you can buy it, typically, right near the sprinkles," I informed them, pointing to the sprinkles Esme bought earlier today.

"So, wait," Emmett started, confused. "Just because a cake is say, green, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to taste like lime or something to you, right?" he asked.

I made a face. Green cake could be because of something much worse than food dye or limes. Actually, I don't think a lime cake would taste all that great. I had key lime pie once and I didn't like it. It was too sour and sweet at the same time. Lemon margarine on the other hand...

"I don't think I'd eat a green cake no matter what but yeah," I told him truthfully. All the vampires looked confused by this bit of information. Only Jasper was willing to speak up this time though.

"Why not?"

"Because green could also mean it's old, like mold and stuff," I said, scrunching my nose. "And that's just gross," I told them. Edward smiled at me. At least he probably knew that moldy old cake would also be very harmful to the human.

"Don't worry, love. No green cakes," he told me.

"But what about like Saint Patrick's day? Would you eat green cake then?" Emmett asked, seriously. All I could hear was the old Dr. Seuss children's book in my head, practically in a sing-song voice. I managed not to respond with a "I will not eat them on a train, I will not eat them on a plane," comment given that I doubt they even know that book. It was after all their times. I bit my lip and nodded no.

The kitchen was quiet for a bit before Jasper spoke up. "What color is spice cake?" he asked me.

That was a hard one given that spice cake didn't have a specific color as much as it was a range of colors. I thought for a second and could almost swear I heard a small groan from Edward. He does that when he gets impacient and upset that he can't read my thoughts. I let it go. "It's sort of a cinnamon color with brown and orangeish flakes in it," I tried to describe it. He seemed satisfied with that.

Not even a split second later we all heard a sound from outside. I had no idea what it was but the others looked worried. Edward came over and held me tightly against his chest. "Rosalie," he answered my unspoken question. "And she has bait."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Hope you liked that. Yes, Rosalie has a plan, Carlisle has sided with the girls, and Alice is very determined to get to play with Bella. You'll see what those three have been up to, a bit, in the next chapter. They definitely haven't been sitting on their hands.


	6. Hinc illae lacrimae

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** First of all, not mine. Not in the least. The only things I own are a nice little townhome, a dog, and now...*drum roll please* a blue truck! Yeah! I named it Bella. :-D It's so pretty.

**Summary:** Pure fluff. With extra fluff. This is slightly out of sequence with the stories but it basically somewhere in Eclipse. I wanted to do a Mother/Daughter fluff scene with Bella and Esme making a cake. The only reason I could come up with for Bella making a cake was to have a fund raiser of some sort so...hence the Senior Trip that never happened in the books!

It's now, completely, a family fluff scene. So much for just two chapters....

**Author's Note: **Oh my goodness! Y'all really do like this, don't you? :-) To jenncrazyy909: All the chapter headings are in Latin. I'm a geek. I can't help it. For any other geeks out there that get what the titles mean, I'm sure they are smirking every time they read them.

* * *

Chapter 6

We stood in front of one of the windows that looked out on the the front lawn. I had tears in my eyes as Edward held me. "No," I whispered as I looked at the scene there on the front lawn. Esme squeezed my shoulder. I think the only reason that she did not go out there and stop the beautiful Rosalie is that all of them secretly agreed; it was time to demolish my truck.

Rosalie was still, at a human pace, getting tools out of the garage to set up for taking my truck apart. She hadn't actually touched it yet. There, the Thing, in it's rusted red glory and it's bulbous cab sat smack in the middle of the yard. I was horrified at all the things she could possibly do to it.

"I'll get you a new car," Edward whispered. He should have known by now I would outright reject that idea. "No, I want my truck," I told him as I shook my head. I was seriously considering handing myself over to Alice just so Rosalie wouldn't touch my truck. It wasn't that I didn't trust Rosalie as a mechanic, it was that this was war and I was terrified she might put in a new engine or something else that would no longer make it my truck. I'd gotten comfortably use to the loud noise the engine makes and the inferior steering. It was slow and dependable. It was very analogous to me in comparison to the stupid shiny Volvo or that Aston Martian thing...is that what it's called? I had no idea. All I knew is that my truck was mine and I didn't want it any different.

"Bella, how about a nice new paint job on your truck?" Rosalie called out loud enough so I could hear through the closed window. I saw her come back into view with some contraption and a few cans of paint. "No," I barely said above a whisper but I knew she probably heard. I doubt it mattered if she didn't.

"Aw, come on, Babe," Emmett called out to her. Rosalie turned to the window, looking sweetly towards Emmett. "You'll get rust in your hair if you play with that....truck," he told her. Rosalie rolled her eyes at him and put down the paint supplies before heading back towards the garage. She was setting up a torture chamber for my truck. I pouted.

"Sorry, Bella," Emmett told me as he watched his wife carry things slowly out in which to give my truck an overhaul, or an undignified death. Either way, my truck would never be the same. I was very unhappy about this turn of events. Playing war was slowly becoming not fun.

I cringed when Rosalie came back into view again. I didn't care what she had, I didn't want to see what fate Rosalie might have in store for my truck. It was simply too painful to watch. I barely noticed, from the confides of Edward's arms, Jasper watching Rosalie. It was very quiet for a few moments when I heard Emmett's voice again. "Jazz, don't be too hard on her," he pleaded with his brother.

I turned slightly to look at Jasper and then back out the window. Jasper was smiling like the cat that ate the canary. As I turned to see the window again, it was Esme that spoke up. "That's enough Jasper," she told him. What I got to see, before Jasper stopped, was Rosalie, sitting on the wet grass, looking like she didn't know whether to sob or be extremely angry. My guess was that Jasper was trying to make her sob because after Esme talked to him, Rosalie quickly got up and glared directly at Jasper. He flinched. Emotional war was an interesting thing to watch if you had the stomach for it.

I felt Edward's arms tighten around me. "Jasper, I don't think that was a good idea," he told him. Jasper looked at Edward questioningly. Edward shook his head slightly. "Bella's truck is now not her primary focus," Edward said.

"Good," I said, immediately relieved. My truck was safe again from the hands of a maniacal mechanical monster. Not that my vampires were monsters, just anyone who would dare to touch my truck and "improve" it or demolish it is automatically a monster. Edward kissed my head.

"What will she do now?" Esme asked worriedly. Edward didn't even have to answer. Rosalie came back into view with Jasper's bike (formerly Edward's) and a can of pink paint. I didn't even realize vampire's could pale like that but Jasper did.

"Oh no," Emmett said. "Jazz, I umm..." he tried to continue, scratching the top of his head.

"She wouldn't!" Esme whispered, her hand on her heart again.

"She would," both Edward and Jasper said solemnly. I felt bad. Yes, my truck was safe for now but it would be Jasper's bike that would be tortured in it's place. Jasper just did NOT strike me as the pink type at all. His wife, yes, but not Jasper.

Jasper, sadly, looked at Edward. Edward nodded once and kissed me on the head. "I'll be right back," he whispered and left me next to Esme. I half wondered where he went, and half wondered what torture Rosalie had planned on Jasper's bike.

"Maybe I should go out there," I told the group. Jasper stopped me as I turned towards the door. "I won't matter now, Bella. She's just upset with me and thinks this is a good idea for revenge," he said sounding so heartbroken. Maybe I could paint it back to a nice basic black after this was all over.

As Rosalie pulled up the small paintbrush dipped in bright neon pink paint, I could hear Taps playing on the piano. So that's where Edward had gone. Both Jasper and Emmett turned to the window and placed their hands over their hearts as Rosalie lowered the paintbrush slowly on the the shiny black bike. Taking in the sad scene before me, and the one maniacal mechanic outside, I came to a split second decision. "Wait!" I yelled at Rosalie.

She turned, and smirked at me. The paint had yet to get on the bike. "This isn't about you anymore, Bella," she said loud enough for me to hear.

I put my hands on my hips and glared out the window. "If you do that, I'm breaking every single mirror in the house," I told her. Everything went deadly silent.

"You'd risk seven years bad luck?" Rosalie asked, standing up and dropping the paintbrush into the can.

"Rosalie, do you really think my luck could get any worse?" I asked her seriously. After all, the newborns were out there, Victoria, and the Volturi. Anything worse and I'll just end up dead. Not that that was a good thing but I'm pretty sure that a meteor really could come falling out of the sky and hit me. It really would not surprise me.

This made Rosalie stop and think. No mirrors. I'd even go so far as to accidentally break every shiny surface if I could. Esme might kill me but it would stop Rosalie from hurting Jasper's bike. I do have my priorities.

"Esme wouldn't let you," Rosalie said definitely.

"And I won't let you paint Jasper's bike!" came a fast but small blur. I knew instantly it was Alice. Alice grabbed the bike and swiftly took it out of my viewing range. Rosalie scowled. When Alice came back into view, she looked up to the window. "Sorry, Jazz. I didn't see it until it was pretty much too late," she apologized to her husband.

"It's okay, Bella managed to hold her off," he stated with relief in his voice. I smiled a bit.

Both Rosalie and Alice started to talk but it was too low for me to hear. I watched them run off again. The second battle to this war ended in a stalemate. I felt Edward retake his place he had abandoned a few minutes earlier. "We'll take your truck back to your house," he whispered.

"But we still need Bella!" Emmett told him. Edward narrowed his gaze towards Emmett. Stupid silent conversations...

"We need more cake mix if you still want to make the cake, right?" I asked both Jasper and Emmett.

"Yeah...." Emmett responded.

"Well, I can drop my truck off at my house then and you can go get cake mix. Just pick me up on the way back," I told him matter of factly.

"Awesome!" Emmett exclaimed.

"Why don't you come with us, Bella?" Jasper asked. "You can drop your truck off but we'll wait. We really do need your help with this," he told me.

"Okay," I shrugged.

Edward sighed. He obviously had some problem with this plan. "I'll drive the car," he said exasperated and headed towards the door. I, stumbling, grabbed my jacket and keys for my truck.

"You should come with us, Esme," Jasper told her. "We don't want you being taken hostage."

Esme's gentle laugh filled the room. "And abandon the house so...the dark side, was it? Can take it over?" she teased her sons.

"Good point, Esme. Hold the fort. You might want to use the security features," Jasper told her. It was clear Esme found this amusing. "Maybe we should create a password in case of..." Jasper started but Emmett grabbed him by the collar.

"Whatever, man. Let's go!" Emmett told him as he dragged Jasper until he walked under his own power towards the Volvo.

Edward walked me to my truck and opened the door to the driver's side. He braced himself on the door frame before I could hop in. I looked up at him and could smell his sweet breath. "Be safe," he whispered before leaning in to kiss me. I closed my eyes when I heard the horn to the Volvo. We both looked over at the passenger side and the back seat to see his brothers laughing. Edward growled.

"I'll be right behind you, love," he whispered. He kissed me lightly on the lips and then ran over to the Volvo. I shook my head, dazzled again, and hopped into my truck. Thank goodness it still made that horrible loud noise. Rosalie hadn't been able to touch it. I backed it up and headed towards Charlie's.

As I drove at 20 mph down the gravel way and made it out on to the main road, I couldn't help but feel like I was going from the mythological world into the real one. The only reason I knew the mythological world still existed was the radio that now re-existed thanks to Edward in my truck and the shiny Volvo behind me. I noticed he was driving a bit too close. A small smile crept on to my lips. He knew perfectly well my truck could not and would not go over 55. The speed limit was technically 45 through this part...so I did 40.

I looked into the rear view mirror to see Edward clutching the wheel tightly. When I was almost to Charlie's Emmett started to bang his head against the dashboard to visually show me his frustration. I giggled at that. The only thing I found "demon" about my vampires was that they were all speed demons; even Esme.

I pulled up into the driveway and hopped out of my truck happily. I knew I had frustrated the heck out of Edward. He rushed up to me and leaned over me the second I was out of the cab. "Did you _have_ to do that?" he asked.

Do what? What was I doing? Where am I? Oh, yeah, the truck. I was in the truck, going slow... "You know perfectly well that Charlie's a cop. How would it look if I got a speeding ticket?" I asked him with very little confidence in my voice. I heard someone smirk from behind Edward.

"Come on! We need to get to the store sometime in the next, oh, I don't know, hour?" Emmett yelled from the passenger side. Yeap, I managed to frustrate my vampires. Getting anything more than laughter out of them due to my clumsiness was an accomplishment in my book.

Edward lead me to the car and opened the back driver's side door for me. Jasper scooted over to the passenger's side as far as possible. I decided to try and stay on my side to help him as much as possible. I wonder if rolling down the windows would help or not. After Edward made sure I was in, he got in quickly. We were back at the Thriftway in under three minutes. I didn't think that was possible.

I managed to stumble my way out of the car and accepted Edward's out stretched hand. Emmett just laughed at me. I glared back at him which just made him laugh harder. I, of course, blushed. I was up to beet red when the four of us got into the store.

I looked over and saw the carts and baskets as we entered. "We only need the cake mix, right guys?" I asked them.

"Yeah, I think so," Emmett answered me. I nodded once. Good, then we didn't need a cart or anything like that.

I managed to lead the way, my hand tightly around Edward's, towards aisle nine again. Now, rather than just Esme, I had three boys looking over the wide variety of cake mixes. Emmett looked amazed at the variety while Jasper looked like he was reading through each and every box. Edward just wrapped his arms around me when we reached the cake mixes.

Emmett picked up a box of funfetti cake mix. "What's this taste like?" he asked. I stammered. How do you explain what cake tastes like to a vampire. "Well, it's sweet with sweeter sugary bits in the cake because of the sprinkles," I tried to tell him. Emmett just looked at the box and muttered a "huh" before putting it back.

Jasper picked up my favorite cake mix, Betty Crocker's Super moist Spice cake. "Can we make this one, Bella?" he asked, smiling.

"Sure," I told him. "Spice cake is the best," I further informed him. Jasper looked proud as he headed towards the cashier. I had forgotten I told him that it was my favorite earlier.

Once Jasper and Emmett had walked by us, towards the cashier, I pulled gently away from Edward and turned to look at him. "What are they planning?" I mouthed. Edward smiled and shook his head. Whatever it was, either Edward didn't know or he figured it was harmless enough not to interfer.

We followed them and got to the register just as Emmett handed over a $10. I remembered the bet from earlier. "Hey, isn't that my ten?" I teased him.

Emmett looked down at me and grinned. "Later, little sister," he said and turned his attention back to the cashier. I just stood there, shocked. Emmett actually already thought of me as his little sister? Really? I managed to recover myself and followed the others out to the car.

We got back to the mansion in record time. It took about 5 minutes. It takes me at least 5 minutes to just make it up their driveway. I hope I don't have this impulsive need to drive at 150 mph when I become a vampire. Or, at least, I hope I remember the queasiness and don't drive 150 mph with a human in the car. It's just not nice.

I sat in the car for a bit, hoping the world would stop moving even through the car was already in park and Edward was at my side. "Sorry, Love," he whispered as he kissed me on the head and picked me up out of the car.

"Put me down," I barely managed to get out. He silently did as asked and put me in the seated position on the hood of his car rather than the Volvo.

"We'll meet you inside, okay Bella?" Jasper asked. Emmett was already trudging up to the house at vampire speed. That really didn't help with my stomach. I nodded at Jasper.

By the time my stomach had settled to a point where I was pretty sure I could move again, Jasper appeared at Edward's side. "We have a problem," he stated.

"What?" I asked as I hopped down from the hood of Edward's car. There was now less than maybe an inch of space between Edward and myself. What was I about to do again?

"They've taken Esme," Jasper answered. I turned to him. This can't be good.

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**Author's Note:** I hope y'all like this one. It's a bit different than what I originally planned but I think it came out alright. Don't worry, there will be a lot more Alice, Rosalie, and Carlisle soon. However, Bella just doesn't know what the "enemy" is up too.


	7. Pax et piaculum

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer: **I own a nice pretty, clean, blue truck with all leather interior named Bella. I also own my own townhome, a great computer, and a sweet puppy dog. I do not own Twilight. Ever.

**Summary:** Bella agrees to make cakes for the Fork's High School senior class fund raiser and Esme helps! Fluff insues! With more family fluff! It's all very fluffy! I really like that word… Eclipse, slightly AU

**Author's Note:** Hehehe…Ya know, I never know what these guys will do until I start typing. I hope y'all like this chapter too! Thank you so much for all the reviews, favs, and alerts!

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Chapter 7

"Damn," I heard Edward curse softly. He suddenly realized I was about an inch away from him. "Bella, love, I apologize. I shouldn't have said…," he started before looking down at me. Slowly, he took his hand to my face and gently rubbed my cheekbone with his thumb. I could only stare back up at him helplessly. Edward began to move closer. I could smell the sweet scent of his breath upon my lips.

"Umm, y'all do realize I'm right here? And we are at war?" Jasper asked. I could feel myself uh…calming even though air would have trouble moving between Edward and myself right now.

Edward growled at his brother. "Later," he told Jasper. The calmness that had settled on me lifted and I was once again being dazzled by Edward.

"Fine," Jasper said, crunching the gravel beneath his boots as he walked back up to the house leaving me alone with Edward. "I guess Alice was right," he muttered just barely loud enough for me to hear. Not that I was paying attention since Edward's lips were brushing against mine at that point. Edward growled again and threw his head back in frustration.

Spinning around, Edward pulled me around with him, his arms encircling me. "Alright, Jasper. You win. Bella will help you with the cake," he told his brother before looking down at me and smiling. He turned his attention now back to a smirking Jasper. "If she _chooses_ to help you," he further informed him. Jasper nodded, a more serious expression on his face now.

"Of course I'll help, Jasper," I told both the boys. After all, I had a feeling whatever this cake was for, I might have to eat a piece or two of it. I was not about to eat a piece of cake made by mythological creatures that hadn't had any need to bake in a few decades or so. Who knows what it would taste like and pretending to like something I didn't, lying, was so not my forte.

"Thanks, Bella," he said sincerely. Jasper turned his attention back to Edward who was still holding me in his arms. Edward kissed my hair and squeezed me a bit tighter. I automatically placed my arms on top of his.

"We need you to conduct another reconnaissance mission, Edward. See if you can find out if they took Esme willingly or not," Jasper said allowed for my benefit. He was back in Major Hale mode.

"You mean Esme might just leave us? Side with Alice?" I asked, shocked. Why would my second mother do such a thing after agreeing to help protect me from the pains of evening gowns during the middle of the day? My eyes narrowed. "She didn't take the curling irons or make-up bags with her, did she?" I asked. If she did, I have no doubt that Alice could set up Bella's Beauty shop wherever she pleased, including Charlie's.

Edward gently laughed at me and Jasper's Major Hale mode faltered to allow a small smirk. "It might be prudent to check the inventory of the bathroom, Bella but I don't believe she did," Jasper admitted. In other words, it hadn't even crossed his mind. Sure, he was playing war and he didn't even check to see what artillery the enemy might have gotten their hands on! Stupid vampire war games… I pouted.

It was quiet for a bit before I felt Edward nod. They were having one of the silent conversations again. That really didn't help my current mood and both of them noticed. "Go with Jazz, love," Edward told me, gently turning me around in his arms. "Both he and Emmett wish to make a cake and do need your help," he smiled. My mood instantly shifted as I gazed back up into his eyes. I watched his eyes flicker to Jasper. "As you have already seen," he added before giving me a quick kiss and speeding off into the woods.

I stood there for a moment until I heard Jasper smirk at me again. "Come on, Bella," he said, gesturing for me to follow him back into the house. "I believe Emmett has everything set up for the cake baking," he told me. He guided me back into the house, keeping his distance but not letting me too far out of reach. I guess it was in case I fall, again, or something.

We walked back to the kitchen which was now all set up. Emmett had already dumped the cake mix into the mixing bowl. When he saw us come in, Emmett grinned. "Great!" he shouted. He looked at the both of us and looked puzzled. "Where's Edward?" he asked.

Jasper walked around to Emmett so they'd both be right next to the mixing bowl. "I sent him to scout out the area and detect whether Esme went willingly or not," Jasper informed him. That brought to mind my earlier question.

"Why would she go willingly?" I asked the two boys in front of me. They both looked at me incredulously. "I mean, she did side with us, right?" I asked. Maybe I was missing something. Maybe this was perfectly normal for vampires to completely switch sides during the middle of a fight because they wanted to.

Emmett laughed at me and I scowled. Jasper offered me a small smile and said only one word, "Carlisle." Oh, I guess if Carlisle came and asked her, she'd go with him. That did make sense after all.

"Oh," was my brilliant reply. I looked down at the counter to see the ingredients for the cake. The directions weren't very different from the cakes previous to this one today. I looked up from the box I had taken into my hand and over at the two boys in front of me.

"Did you preheat the oven?" I asked Emmett.

He scratched his head. "Umm, no," he said and then looked right at me, leaning over the island a bit. "How do you preheat an oven?" he asked so sincerely I couldn't even laugh at him.

I hopped off the barstool and walked around to the oven behind Jasper and Emmett. "Okay, all you do to preheat the oven is hit the bake button," I said as I punched the button. Both vampires were watching me intently. "And then you push this up arrow button over here to bring it up to the temperature you want," I told them. Both of them looked to find this fascinating.

"Huh," Emmett muttered. "So will it tell us somehow when it gets to 425?" he asked. Based on Jasper's expression, he had the same question.

I nodded. "It should beep and the little red light here," I said pointing to a tiny light in the bottom right corner of the face of the stove. "That should come on," I informed them.

They both looked at the oven again for a good minute. I really wish Edward was here just to tell me what was going through their heads. Emmett came out of his reverie first and grinned at me. "Cool, Bella!" he told me.

"It's a lot different than I remember," Jasper muttered before turning back to the island and the assorted items on it.

As I went back to my spot on the barstool, I couldn't help but make one small semi-sarcastic comment back. "Yeah, we stopped having to chop the wood outback just to brew the kettle of tea in the morning oh about a few decades ago or so," I told him. Both of them stopped and looked at me. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything.

It was about another second before Emmett burst out laughing and Jasper shook his head. I managed a weak smile. "Tea, Bella?" Emmett said through his laughter. "Don't most humans drink coffee in the morning?" he grinned as his laughter calmed down.

"Sure, sure," I said before turning my attention back to the cake mix. "Jasper, can you get the oil and water for the cake?" I asked.

He smiled at me. "Depends. I'm use to the spigot outback and not one of these fancy indoor plumbing deals," Jasper teased as he picked up the measuring cup. Emmett went into another wave of laughter. I grimaced. "Just do it, Jasper."

"Yes'm," he replied and turned around to get water out of the tab.

"Emmett?" I asked as his laughter faded.

"Yeah, Bella?" he replied.

"Want to try to crack one of the eggs?" I asked him.

He looked….scared? The big bear of a man looked scared at the simple delicate egg. "I don't know, Bella," he told me as all the humor vanished from his face. He looked right at me, "What if I get egg shell in the cake?"

I smiled gently and pulled up one of the smaller mixing bowls from nearby. "Well, want to practice with this bowl? This way you won't have to worry about the egg shells," I told him. It was a really good thing we got the 18 egg carton and not just a dozen.

"Thanks, Bella!" Emmett said as he carefully picked up an egg to try and crack it. Jasper had already poured both the water and the oil into the mix and was now watching his brother intently.

"Just tap the egg, Emmett," Jasper told him. "It will crack."

Emmett nodded. He slowly picked up the egg and gently tapped it against the granite countertop. It didn't even crack. Scrunching up his eyebrows, he tried again, a little bit faster. It cracked and the egg started to pour through the crack and on to the counter.

"Quick! Into the bowl, Emmett," I said frantically. He did as he was told and grinned. "Good, now Jasper? Did you want to try again?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "No, maybe you should do this one, Bella," he told me. Since they both had at least tried, I sighed and picked up an egg. I quickly tapped it against the edge of the bowl, broke it in half and dumped the white and yoke into the cake mix. Both boys looked at me amazed.

"How did you _do_ that?" Emmett asked as he picked up the small bowl to pour his egg into the mix.

"Do what?" I asked as I got up to throw the egg shell away in the trash can.

"Break the egg that quickly and perfectly," Jasper informed me. His eyes were curious.

"It's an egg. I have to break them all the time," I told them, trying to figure what they were getting at. In between cake making today and breakfast this morning, I wasn't sure how many eggs I had broken today alone, let alone this week. I just broke eggs; it was part of being a human and eating for me.

As I threw the egg shells into the trash can, I felt a familiar cool breeze gush up against my side and kiss the side of my jaw. "Hello, Bella," Edward whispered into my hair.

"Hi, Edward," I whispered. I think I heard two groans from somewhere behind me but I'm not sure.

"Ah! How is the cake making going?" I heard a fourth voice say. I knew it was Carlisle's and immediately became curious. Hadn't he joined Alice's team?

I turned around to see the scene before me. Emmett and Jasper were still both in front of the mixing bowl. Edward was right next to me, squeezing my hand gently. In front of me, in the door way to the kitchen, was Doctor Carlisle Cullen. I looked at him confused.

"What are you doing here, Carlisle?" Emmett asked, exasperated. Jasper was in a protective stance, ready to playful fight his father if necessary.

"I have come to discuss the terms of our treaty," Carlisle said with a playful smile hinting on his lips.

"Aww, man," Emmett started. "We haven't even had any good fights yet," he muttered.

Jasper looked at his father. "What are the terms?" he asked seriously as he walked around the island.

Emmett picked up a spoon and began to stir the mix while Jasper was preoccupied with his war game. I slowly left Edward's side to supervise. "Just stir it until it's smooth," I whispered to Emmett as Jasper and Carlisle discussed the terms. Edward, of course, had followed me and wrapped his arms around me. I sank back against him instinctively.

"First, you are to hand Bella over," Carlisle stated.

"No," Jasper immediately said, cutting Carlisle off. Carlisle raised his hand in response.

"After this cake is put into the oven," Carlisle finished. He smiled at the group of us. "You should have some time before you need her help with the icing," he informed the boys. "At least a couple of hours, or so I am told."

Jasper looked like he was considering this. I turned to bury my head in Edward's chest. I knew I would be playing Bella dress up in the next few minutes and there was nothing I could do about it. Jasper was going to sacrifice me in the name of peace.

"As long as we get her back once the cake is cool," Jasper told Carlisle. I couldn't see what was going on, I was pouting into Edward's chest, but I did hear it silent for a couple of seconds.

"Sorry, Bella," I heard Emmett whisper. Edward simply held me. "It will be alright," he said into my hair before he kissed the top of my head.

"Easy for you to say," I muttered. "Alice isn't going to try and paint your fingernails," I told him.

"She tried before," I heard Edward say. I looked up at him, curious. He shrugged, "It was the 90's." I just looked at him incredulously. He smiled back at me.

"So what do we do next, Bella?" Emmett asked sadly. He knew by finishing the cake he was sending me to Alice.

"Just pour the batter into the pan," I told him. "Put the pan into the oven and it should be done in 35 minutes or so." I watched as Emmett purposefully, slowly, poured the batter into the cake pan. He then made sure with a spoon that every possible bit got into the pan. Once he couldn't get anymore out, he opened the oven at a slow human pace and carefully put the cake pan in.

"I think Alice is waiting for you upstairs, Bella," I heard Carlisle say. I hung my head and slowly walked up the stairs to my doom.

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**Author's note:** Sorry this one is a bit short. But the war is over! Hurray! So, now time to futher the Grand Vampire Conspiracy....


	8. Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer: **I own a nice pretty, clean, blue truck with all leather interior named Bella. I also own my own townhome, a great computer, and a sweet puppy dog. I do not own Twilight. Ever.

**Summary:** Bella agrees to make cakes for the Fork's High School senior class fund raiser and Esme helps! Fluff ensues! With war, cake making, conspiracies, and now Bella Barbie!!! Eclipse, slightly AU

**Author's Note:** And in this chapter, Bella becomes the "sacrificial lamb". Get it? 'Cause Edward says he's the lion and all…. …..why do I hear cricket's chirping?

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Chapter 8

I trudged begrudgingly up the stairs towards Alice's Room. I swear I could hear the funeral march being hummed for a few bars before I also heard a smack to the back of what I assumed was Emmett's head. I did manage a small smile at that. I wondered who it was that had smacked him this time.

I guess I paced myself too quickly towards the end because I tripped on the last stair. I caught the banister in time and righted myself. I was getting better, I hoped. I noticed two feet in designer black patent leather shoes in front of me. I also heard a huff. It was not Alice.

I looked up to see Rosalie there. She had her arms crossed over her chest and rolling her eyes. "Really, Bella. Are you trying to kill yourself in a house full of vampires?" she asked with no humor on her face.

"Sorry," I mumbled as I managed to take the step around her and look to Alice's room. I really, truly, was frightened of what I might come out looking like. I hope she didn't cut my hair or put me in some low cut gown. I did have to get home tonight eventually and I doubted Alice would let me change to my clothing before heading back to make dinner for Charlie.

Ugh. Dinner. I had forgotten about that. I guessed it was around 5 already. I couldn't let Charlie fend for himself, that would be a cruel punishment. We could either have pizza or Chinese tonight although Mr. Snow's egg rolls didn't taste nearly as good since he hired the new chef…

It was Rosalie who brought me out of my mental dilemma. "Aren't you supposed to be going to see Alice?" she asked. She actually sounded questioning rather than spiteful or vindictive. Actually, she had gotten well, pleasant wasn't really the right word but she wasn't sneering or glaring at me anymore since Edward, Alice, and I got back from Italy. It was more like she was resigned and knew that my being changed was inevitable.

"Oh yeah," I said to the most beautiful woman. I had to look away from her knowing how plain I was in comparison. "I was just thinking about what Charlie might want for dinner," I said off handedly before heading towards Alice's room. I could just see the speck of blond hair in my peripheral vision _follow_ me. That's odd.

"Can't he make his own dinner?" Rosalie asked in what I guess was an attempt at small talk. I looked at her. Rather than avoiding me, she was opening the door of Alice's room and going in. I followed blindly; now believe more than ever that there was a conspiracy going on.

I couldn't say anything back to Rosalie because I was suddenly being hugged by someone with a tuff of black hair. "Oh good! You finally made it!" Alice squealed. She grabbed my hand and led me to the bathroom.

Alice & Jasper's bathroom counter was already covered in make up kits, curling irons, and other things I didn't even really know what to make of. "This is going to be so much fun," Alice told me. She was, of course, all smiling.

"Alice," I started. I looked worriedly over to the assorted hair gels and eyeshadows. This looked even worse than I imagined. Beauty was torture.

Alice turned to me and narrowed her eyes. "Don't ruin this for me, Isabella Marie!" she started. Her face feel and she looked down at our hands. "You know I don't remember anything before," she started to say. Her voice sounded so small, so terribly sorrowful, I had to interrupt her. Darn guilt tripping annoying vampires…

"Fine, Alice," I resigned. I went over to sit in the chair that I think was vintage early 60's. It even had the blue sparkling vinyl upholstery. I crossed my arms and sighed. I probably shouldn't have looked in the mirror, but I did. I could see Alice, smiling again, coming up towards me. Being next to her alone made me want to look away. She was beautiful with her small features, perfect. But I also Rosalie in the mirror and that made me cringe.

Rosalie was perfect. Alice was perfect. I…I had a dash of what was probably cake mix on my cheek and my hair all mussed up. More than a few strands had fallen from what had been an imperfect ponytail to begin with. I looked terribly plain and boring.

"Maybe I should go," Rosalie told Alice. She must have seen me cringe. I felt badly about that. I didn't want her to think it was because I didn't like her. It wasn't that at all. It was that my self esteem took a nose dive any time I saw her.

I twisted around in the chair as best I could while Alice tried to figure out what she wanted to do first. "No, Rosalie, you don't have to go," I told her. Rosalie bit her bottom lip and glanced at the door. "I mean, if you want to go, I understand," as I turned back around, now pre-occupied with my hands.

I could see Alice's frame from the corner of my eye stop and look towards where Rosalie was. Looking up, I could see Alice's lips moving but couldn't hear anything. It was another silent conversation but I wasn't upset about it this time. At least I knew Rose was still behind me and, hopefully, didn't take the whole cringing thing as an insult.

After a few seconds, Alice turned and smiled at me. "Rose is just going to get me some things from her room. She has this belt that will go perfectly with the outfit I have planned for you," Alice squealed.

"Alice, nothing too…" I tried to think of the right word. How to explain to Alice, whose entire existence seemed to be devoted to fashion that I didn't want to be a walking coat hanger?

"Ostentatious?" Rosalie said as she came back into the room. She handed a bag over to Alice that said _Burberry_ on it. I had no idea what store that was but something told me that to even touch whatever they sold, you had to be making a lot more than Charlie did. I nodded as I eyed the bag. Ostentatious would work.

Alice rolled her eyes while she now wielded a hair brush in her hand. "Really, Bella. You'll be perfect!" I heard her say but I kept my eyes on the hair brush. I was worried and just wanted to know her plans. I knew she wouldn't tell me; she never did. It was always a surprise and I hated surprises.

I could do nothing but watch as Alice worked on me. I didn't bother to look at the mirror since I was terrified of what I might see. All I watched was Alice's lithe steps back and forth in front of me as she danced around in a drastic attempt to make me "pretty". I could hear Alice and Rosalie's commentary. Rose would every so often ask Alice to use one type of curler over another or one type of lipstick rather than the one Alice was reaching for. I didn't know the difference. Wasn't a curler just a curler and what mattered which lipstick it was if they were all the same color?

After what felt like hours, Alice stood in front of me and scrutinized my face. I squirmed partly out of sitting for so long, partly because Alice was staring at me, and partly because I really didn't want to sit here anymore and be Alice's experimental human. Alice took a step back and smiled. "Done!" she said proudly.

I turned to look in the mirror when Alice stopped me. "No, we have to get you dressed first," she told me as she grabbed my hand.

"We?" I asked as she lead me to her closet. Once she released me, I sat down on her bed. It was more comfortable than the chair I had been in for who knows how long. I really should start wearing a watch because vampire's don't measure time anywhere close to how I do.

"Rose?" Alice asked from inside her closet. I was just watching fabric flying out at amazing speeds.

"Yes?" Rosalie asked. I noticed she had gotten up and moved closer to me. When she saw me looking at her, she even offered a tentative smile.

"Did you ever get that top from Betsey Johnson?" Alice asked as she came out of the closet holding more clothing that I had in my entire house.

Rosalie shook her head. "No, I decided against it and went with the pink dress from Ralph Lauren," she informed Alice.

"Oh well, I guess this will have to do," Alice stated as she threw the pile on the floor and started to pick through it. I had no idea what I'd end up in but I knew whatever it was, the outfit was worth more than I would ever see in a week.

I watched both of them, Alice and Rosalie, pick through the pile of clothing and argue over what would look good and what wouldn't. What matched and what didn't. Considering I really hadn't been around Rose much, I found it fascinating.

"What about the blue top with the light grey skirt?" Rose asked.

"No, I'm thinking something a bit more daring," Alice responded as she burrowed through the pile.

"Alice!" I exclaimed. I didn't want to wear anything _daring_. Afterall, I'd have to be going home soon and I didn't want to have to explain what I was wearing to Charlie. Edward was already on his bad side. Alice ignored me.

"The black top with the white lace, the pink jacket, and the jean skirt?" Rose asked Alice. I saw her pick a pink jacket up out of the pile.

"Oh, I like what you're thinking," Alice started. She closed her eyes and looked like she was deep in thought. When she opened them again she grimaced. "Not the black top."

"What about the other black one? With the v-neck and the strings on the sides?" Rosalie asked as she pulled a black top out of the pile that looked way too small for me.

"Perfect!" Alice exclaimed. "Thanks so much Rose," she said as she danced around the pile to retrieve the items from Rosalie. I wasn't sure where the jean skirt in question was but neither of the girls seemed to be bothered that it wasn't in sight.

Rose smiled at me and then looked back at Alice. "I'll be downstairs," she told her sister.

"Make sure Edward doesn't get away from Emmett," Alice told her as Rose left the room. I wondered why Edward hadn't come to rescue me yet. I thought Emmett was on my side!

Alice stood me up and undressed me quickly only to dress me up in the tight black top that scrunched up the sides with drawstrings that tied, the jean skirt that was an inch higher than I liked, and the jacket that didn't really offer much protection given that Alice wouldn't let me button it up.

"Stop fidgeting, Bella," Alice complained.

"This outfit is barely legal!" I told her. She rolled her eyes in response and threw me a pair of matching pink footless tights.

"There is nothing wrong with the outfit," she told me as I put the tights on. She straightened out the jacket again and gave me a once over before handing me a pair of shoes. Thank God, they were flats. I slipped them on.

Once I was erect again, Alice spun me around. "There, perfect," she said as she pushed me towards the mirror. "See?" she asked, already smirking.

I didn't recognize me at first. I brought my hand up to my face but didn't touch it. The make up was subtle, only really highlighting my cheekbones and some light lipstick. My hair was a mass of curls arranged in a way you could almost see the red in my hair even in this light. The pink of the jacket brought out the pink undertones of my skin. The black top was way too tight in my opinion but it didn't look bad at all. The skirt looked perfect with the pink footless tights.

"Wow, Alice. I almost look pretty," I said, really amazed at the job she had done.

"Almost?" Alice sighed as she rolled her eyes. "You are pretty. I just made it more noticeable," she told me. I smiled at her and gave her a hug. "Thanks, Alice."

"You're welcome," the pixie chirped back. Just I pulled away from Alice, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I looked up to see Edward leaning in the doorway to Alice & Jasper's room, his arms neatly folded over his chest. His face was expressionless. I guessed he didn't like the outfit so I blushed, beet red, and looked down at the shoes Alice had me put on.

Alice giggled and danced towards the doorway. "Edward," she said as she left.

"Alice," he acknowledged. The second the pixie left her room, I could feel Edward's eyes on me again.

"You don't like it?" I whispered as I looked at the floor. I felt two cool arms envelope me.

"I believe the correct word for your current look is sexy," he whispered into my hair before starting to kiss me along my jaw line. "But even that doesn't cover it," he whispered into my ear. I could feel his cold breath on my face.

"No?" I managed to get out. I held him against me and realized my hands were crawling up his back and into his hair.

"Beautiful," he said as his lips skimmed across my jaw.

"Luscious," he whispered into my neck.

"Sumptuous," I barely registered as he moved to the other side of my jaw. His lips never really left my skin.

"And most importantly," he said as he pulled away to look into my eyes, smiling.

I think I said something like "yes" but I'm not sure. I think I at least heard someone say yes and it sounded like me.

"Ravishing," he finished as he placed his lips on mine. I held him tighter, kissing him back. My fingers wove through his hair as I tried harder to deepen the kiss. Amazingly, he didn't pull back or try to stop me. Instead, he clenched my waist tighter and _he_ moaned into my mouth.

"Oh great now, Edward!" I heard someone say. Wait? Was there anyone else here? I didn't care. All I cared about was Edward and his lips on mine.

"I'm going to have to redo her lipstick!" I heard this person pout. It sounded a lot like…

"Go away, Alice," I heard Edward mutter as he pulled away. Luckily, it was only for a second.

"No. First of all, you are in _my_ room. Second, the cakes are cool and as part of the treaty," Alice started to tell Edward.

I pouted as Edward pulled away again although I was still in his arms. "Sorry, love," he told me, our foreheads touching. He smiled at me. I felt a very strong little hand pull on my arm, taking me away from Edward. I frowned. He went to lean up against the wall.

"Really, I leave you two alone for all of a second and he totally ruins your make-up!" Alice complained as she put me back in the chair.

"Sorry, Alice," I muttered even though I wasn't the least bit sorry. She took me away from what I wanted! I didn't care if her hard work got all smeared if it was Edward doing the smearing.

"It's not your fault, Bella," Alice said in such a tone that it was clear whose fault it was. She went back to work and, within a couple of minutes, pronounced me perfect again.

I felt her hand clasp my wrist gently again and pull me to the doorway where Edward was standing. She simply glared at him. Alice wasn't about to leave me alone again with him. Edward smirked at his sister and then offered his crooked smile to me. The only reason I didn't kiss him right then and there was because Alice was dragging me towards the stairs. "Bella," I heard Alice's voice warn me. I pouted. Edward smirked.

"Don't worry. Only another hour or so before I have to take you home and she won't be around then," he whispered into my ear quietly. Alice just rolled her eyes. Whatever she was thinking or seeing at that moment made Edward's mood change quickly. "That's enough, Alice," he told her sternly.

"You know it will happen, Edward. Stop being such a baby," she told him…and then proceeded to stick her tongue out at him. Edward sighed, annoyed at his sister. We reached the bottom of the stairs and Alice let me go, finally.

"Alright, Bella!" Emmett boomed as he came over, grinning. He picked at one of my curls and gently pulled it, grinning as it bounced back into place. Alice jump up to slap his hand.

"Don't ruin my hard work!" she chastised him. I think I heard her mumble something about boys and not understanding fashion but I wasn't sure.

Emmett just shook his head at her before turning back to me. "Can you help us make the icing now?" he asked, excited.

"Sure," I told him, stealing at glance at Edward. I still had no idea what this was about. All I knew was that Emmett and Jasper wanted me to help them make a cake. It sounded crazy even in my head but so did about half the stuff I did on a daily basis anymore. Making cake with vampires honestly began to sound normal when compared to wanting go mud bike racing with a bunch of werewolves. My life was seriously screwed up.

Emmett grinned and bounded for the kitchen. Edward and I followed. Jasper was already in the kitchen, behind the counter. My three cakes, two of the three for the Cakewalk on Friday, were in front of him.

"Oh, I should cover those since I won't have time to ice all three tonight," I said as I went to go look for the plastic wrap. I knew they had some because Esme had used it before to cover my popcorn bowl.

"What are you looking for?" Jasper asked, curious.

"Plastic wrap. I need it to cover the cakes. You know, so they don't go bad?" I told him as I opened another cabinet looking for the elusive stuff. I heard the sound of plastic wrap being pulled from it's container as soon as I opened the cabinet door. I turned to see Edward placing the clear blue plastic over both of my cakes for the cakewalk. "Thanks," I whispered.

"Of course," he said, flashing me his favorite crooked smile as he put the cakes out of the way. I walked back to sit on my barstool in front of the other two.

"What do we do first?" Emmett asked.

"Well, we need one of the packages of powdered sugar and just pour that into the bowl," I told him. As Emmett grabbed one of the boxes and the scissors to open it, I turned to Jasper. "There should be thing of cream cheese in one of the drawers in the fridge. Can you get it?" I asked.

Jasper nodded and got the cream cheese I had planned on using for wheat thins this weekend. Oh well, this was a greater cause than snack food for the human. After all, spice cake without cream cheese icing was just wrong. It would throw the entire taste off.

Edward stood next to me, an amused smile on his face as he watched his brothers' work. Gently, he took his hand into mine. "We also need to put a stick of butter in and one & one half teaspoons of the vanilla extract," I told them, pointing to the bottle I had picked up with Esme earlier.

Emmett unwrapped the stick of butter, or tried too. He pinched the wrapper to pull it and ended up pinching some of the butter instead. You could easily see his finger marks in the stick as he put it in. It was a good thing it was only going to get all squished up anyway.

Japser picked up the ring of spoons and quickly measured out the vanilla. I bit my lip to keep from laughing when I saw what I guess was the aroma of the vanilla hit each of them strongly. Jasper and Edward just wrinkled their noses like they weren't sure if they liked it or not. Emmett made a face that reminded me of the poison stickers from when I was a little kid. "Wow! That's strong," he said glaring at the bottle in Jasper's hand.

I shrugged. "It's extract," I told him. Edward squeezed my hand and Jasper put the overly strong smelling to vampires vanilla into the bowl. Once all the ingredients were in the bowl, I looked over to the mixer. "You might want to use that because you have to mix it all," I started. I didn't get to finish.

Jasper picked up the bowl and, in about 30 seconds, icing appeared in it all whipped and creamy to perfection. I blinked. Of course they wouldn't need the mixer. Trying to get the cream cheese and butter to soften enough to blend with the sugar didn't seem hard at all if you were a vampire.

Emmett looked at the bowl as Jasper set it back down next to their cake. Edward smirked. I looked up at him but only saw a shake of that bronze hair. "Now we get to ice it, right Bella?" Emmett asked sounding really excited.

"Yeah, just get a couple of knives and," I started. Again, I couldn't finish because both of them got to work before I could really even finish my train of thought. It was annoying being a slow human in Forks. Too many supernatural, mythological creatures around that could move faster and were a lot stronger than me was starting to give me a complex. It was a good thing I was going to be changed soon.

Ten seconds. Ten seconds and they were both done. Before me on the counter was the perfectly iced, delicious spice cake that looked like it belonged on the pages of Good Housekeeping and not in front of me.

"Bella?" Jasper asked.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"Can you test taste it?" he asked. My head snapped up at him and my eyes narrowed. I still didn't know what this cake was for. Jasper just smiled at me. Edward muttered something too low for my ears.

I looked at Jasper and then at Emmett. "Only if you two tell me exactly why you needed this cake so badly," I informed them. It was quite for a second and then Edward began to laugh.

"If that is the case," Edward said, laughing. "Then I ask to be included on this little bet," he told them. I looked up my bronze haired angel, "Bet?"

He smiled down at me, pulling my hand up to his so he could kiss it. "These two," he started, gesturing to Emmett and Jasper, "Have placed a bet."

"You can just go over to Bella's," Emmett said in a huff. Was he sending Edward home with me, right now? I was horribly confused.

"What bet?" I asked, genuinely curious.

Edward gently laughed again but it was Jasper who spoke. "I want to watch the college game on Sunday and Emmett wants to watch the pro game," he said. I heard what sounded like…embarrassment in his voice. "So we decided to solve this issue by seeing who could eat the most cake," he finished.

"And you," Emmett said angrily to Edward, "will probably just cheat so you can't get in on this."

I looked at Emmett and Jasper. "Why don't one of you just watch one of the TV's upstairs?" I asked. I knew Jasper had his own TV in his room. I had just seen it before Alice dragged me out after our latest of installment of Bella's Beauty shop was over. Both Jasper and Emmett looked back at me. Edward seemed to have a permanent smile on his face now.

"That's not the point, Bella," Emmett said, exasperated. I watched him, confused.

"The point is, Bella," Jasper began gently, "that the TV down here is a lot bigger and has Tivo."

"Yeah, so we can pause the game and stuff," Emmett further explained.

"Oh," I said and looked down at the yummy cake that was only going to be wasted on vampires and a silly bet.

"And you want me to taste test it?" I asked. I wasn't sure why given that they wouldn't notice the difference between good cake and bad cake but a chance to actually enjoy my favorite cake, even the slightest bit, was not one I was going to pass up.

Without another word, Jasper got out three plates and cut each of us, minus Edward, a piece. He handed me mine with a fork. "Thanks," I quietly said. I suddenly felt very self conscious as three pairs of golden eyes watched me take the first bite.

"How is it?" Emmett asked, excited again.

I swallowed down my piece of cake, nodding. "It's good!" I told the boys. Actually, it was perfect. I loved spice cake. The cream cheese icing was thick and I could just taste the cinnamon and ginger in the cake. No longer caring about the three pairs of eyes, I went to take another bite.

"Alright!" Emmett bellowed and picked up his own fork. He eyed Jasper. Jasper picked up his fork and got ready to dig into the piece of cake in front of him.

Edward raised his hand and started the countdown. "3, 2, 1, start!" he shouted at his brothers. I watched as they both quickly took their first bites. Their faces were hilarious. Emmett chewed slowly, like he didn't know what to make of the sugary stuff in his mouth. Jasper popped a piece of the cake into his mouth and forcibly swallowed it. He looked like I did when I was forced to eat broccoli.

Teasing them both, I easily took a third bite. To me, this was the greatest stuff ever. To them, it was like eating a kitchen sponge with shaving cream on top. Emmett took this as a contest. He decided to take a bite whenever I did; eating human food at a human pace. His expression was a mixture of determination and something I couldn't quite identify but I think it had to do with the uckiness of the cake to him. Jasper was not to be out done and joined in our little game with my fourth bite. Edward just shook his head at his brothers, amused.

About halfway through our cake eating contest, Jasper gave up. He pushed the plate away, paler than usual. "I'm sorry, but it's just too gross," he said before getting up.

"Woohoo! The TV is mine this Sunday!," Emmett said happily although he didn't look much better than Jasper. That's when I heard another voice pipe up.

"Nope, it's Bella's," Alice said as she danced into the kitchen. She rolled her eyes at her husband and waved him to the stairs.

"But the bet was between me and Jasper!" Emmett told her. "We all know Bella can eat cake," he said.

Alice eyed him. "The bet stated that 'whoever ate the most cake would get the remote on Sunday'. Bella finished her piece so therefore, she gets the remote," Alice said proudly. Edward held back a laugh. I just looked at my empty plate. It was good cake.

"No really, it's okay," I said looking at a disgruntled Emmett and then back to Alice. "Emmett can have the TV," I told her. Alice's face fell.

"Bella?" she said with those doe filled eyes again.

"Yes, Alice?" even though _I_ knew what was coming.

"You can't just give up on this! This is about far more than the TV on Sunday!" she said, her voice almost sounded angry. Before I could ask another question, Rosalie appeared. Her smile looked smug.

"Yes, it's about one of the girls finally getting the TV on Sunday," Rose said.

Emmett went from looking angry at Alice to dejected. "Aw, man," he started. Rosalie sped over to him and shook her finger in his face.

"Don't you start, Emmett. Bella gets the TV on Sunday and there is nothing you can do about it," she told him. I was rather impressed. Was Rose kind of defending me? Okay, so this was really about a female, any female, having control of the TV during a day in which it would normally be sports but still, Rose looked almost happy that her husband lost to me, the human.

"Fine," Emmett muttered, arms crossed. Once Rose looked pleased with herself, Emmett got up to leave.

"Yea!" Alice shouted happily. Rose still just looked smug. Edward pulled me closer to him and kissed my hair.

"Don't you dare ruin those curls, Edward," Alice chastised him. "Charlie hasn't seen her yet!"

"Charlie!" I shouted and hopped up off my barstool to go grab my purse and other things. I needed to get home and order pizza before Charlie got home.

Edward followed me and Alice rolled her eyes. Esme appeared out of what looked like nowhere and gently hugged my shoulders. "You'll be back tomorrow?" she asked, sounding hopeful.

"Yeah," I said. "We've got to finish that other cake if you still want to help me," I told her.

Esme's face brightened. "Of course, dear."

With that, I said my goodbyes and Edward lead me to the Volvo. It was time to go back to the real world again and leave the world of myths for another day. Although Edward would stay with me forever.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I decided to do one long chapter rather than two short ones for a couple of reasons. A) I really want this story to be less than a baker's dozen. and b) it just seemed to flow better that way. I hope you all like the super extra fluffiness of this one.


	9. Inter alios

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** First of all, not mine. Not in the least. The only things I own are a nice little townhome, a dog, and my truck named Bella. Twilight, not so much. Although, if it has the Cullen Crest on it, I like to at least think it's mine; ya know, like the crest earrings, the crest necklace, the crest locket, the crest choaker….

**Summary:** Pure fluff. With extra fluff. This is slightly out of sequence with the stories but it basically somewhere in Eclipse. I wanted to do a Mother/Daughter fluff scene with Bella and Esme making a cake. The only reason I could come up with for Bella making a cake was to have a fund raiser of some sort so...hence the Senior Trip that never happened in the books! However, it's now turned into a family fluff scene. Carlisle will be making more of an appearance soon. He has long hours at the hospital and all….

**Author's Note: **I came up with this while working on my other project. I can only think in Carlisle's 17th c English for so long before the modern nonsense comes out. If you need something dark and disturbing, you might want to check it out. For now, have fun with grumpy Bella!

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Chapter 9

I woke up to the alarm and immediately buried my face back into Edward's chest. He chuckled at me. "Not ready to get up?" he questioned. I grunted in response. No, I did not want to get up. I had zero desire to leave my nice bed with my Edward holding me, none at all.

"If you don't get up, Love, how can you finish the cakes?" he teased. I grumbled into his thin t-shirt, not letting go of him. "Really, Esme will be quite upset," he teased lightly.

That did it. I huffed. Although I didn't want to leave Edward's soft embrace I couldn't disappoint Esme either. She was expecting me after school to finish the other cake and ice all three. And I did want to spend more time with the woman who was like a mother to me. "Fine," I mumbled as I moved to get up. I didn't like it when Edward's arms left me.

I stumbled to the bathroom, still half-asleep really, and had my "human moment". My hair was horrendous looking now. The perfect curls from yesterday had turned into a full snarl. Sighing, I went to take a shower in the hopes that half a bottle of conditioner might make my hair more manageable. I brushed my teeth when I got out and then got dressed in a pair of jeans, a thermal shirt, and a t-shirt over that.

My hair was still soaking wet, but pulled back into a simple braid as I raced back to my room and into Edward's arms. The problem was, he wasn't there. I looked around and no note or Edward anywhere. I bit my lip and wondered where the heck he had gone too. Why had he left? I wasn't more than 10 minutes in the shower. I had to get that mass of tangles out! I felt traitor tears start to form as that old ache in my chest began to make itself known.

I must have stood there, in the middle of my room, my hair dripping on the wood floor, for a good minute. I used the back of my hand to wipe away the tears that were starting to fall down my face. Why did he leave and where did he go?

Just as I finished my thought, I felt two cool arms wrap themselves around me and his lips kiss my wet hair. "mmmmm," Edward muttered as he inhaled my scent. My body froze. He was here? He didn't leave?

"Bella, love, you should," he started as he turned me around. His face registered with shock when he saw the tears still in my eyes. "Bella!?!" he asked, alarmed now.

I tried to look down so he didn't have to see but he wouldn't let me. I felt his hand beneath my chin as he pulled my face up to look at him. "What happened? Are you alright?" he demanded, fear and anxiety lacing his voice.

"I just…I," I stammered. Great, Bella. Now you've got him all worried. You should know by now he'll never pull the whole leaving stunt again. I shook my head and forced a small smile on my face. It was easier when I looked back up at him. "I'm fine," I told him. I was fine, now. Once I was back in the safety of his arms, I was perfect. The ache that had threatened left me completely. I was whole again.

"You were not fine a moment ago," he said softly. He reached a hand up and took away the last of the traitor tears to make his point. "What happened, love?" he whispered, his face inches from mine. He began to give me a small version of his crooked smile he knew I loved while his amber like eyes bore into my brown ones. He was dazzling me and it was working. I had to look away.

"I…didn't see you," I whispered. Huh, I guess I didn't wring my hair out right given the small puddle that formed on my wooden floor. Oh well, at least my hair wasn't tangled in a mass of curly knots anymore.

I felt Edward pull me taut against him. Automatically, my arms moved to hold him. "I will never forgive myself," he whispered so low I don't think I was meant to hear.

I gently pulled back. "I'm fine, Edward. Really," I told him. I looked up at his perfect face and smiled. He managed a smile that didn't reach his eyes in return and kissed me on my forehead.

"Come," he said grabbing my hand. "I made breakfast for the human," he told me proudly. This I had to see.

Breakfast turned out to consist of two pieces of toast with raspberry jam, a glass of orange juice, and a bowl of cereal. The set up was impressive. It looked exactly like one of those pictures you see on the cereal commercials when they say "…is part of a complete breakfast!" I guess that's where he got the idea from. "Thanks, Edward!" I grinned at him before sitting down to eat. My stomach was grumbling.

He smiled back as he leaned against the counter. I caught the time from the corner of my eye and gasped. I'd have to hurry. Edward saw my feeding pace and knew something wasn't right. He looked over to where I just had and rolled his eyes. "Bella, don't worry about the time. My car can easily get us to school with time to spare. Just eat and don't make yourself sick," he scolded.

I grumbled and made a show of eating more slowly. He rolled his eyes again, but this time at me. The smile on his face gave him away though.

Once I was done, I picked up the plates to put them in the sink. I'd wash them when I got home later tonight. "Thanks, Edward. That was impressive for someone that doesn't eat," I teased. He grinned in response.

"I'm all about trying new things with you around, love," he whispered as he came over and wrapped his arms around me. We stood there for a minute, just holding each other. I could care less about school as long as I had Edward. He kissed the top of my head. "We need to get to class," he said, his voice sounding slightly strained. I nodded and we headed for the shiny silver Volvo.

School dragged on longer than normal. I know time is a constant but it didn't feel like it today. Seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours….all I wanted to do was to go to the Cullens and finish the cakes so I wouldn't worry over the stupid cakewalk anymore. Edward kept smirking at me through our classes and I just glared at him.

Lunchtime was filled with an excitement I just couldn't share. Everyone was talking about the fair and the senior class trip. I was too worried about getting the white cake done, icing all three, and hoping no one died from food poisoning from eating one of my cakes or something because I had gotten clumsy and messed up. Or that Lauren's prediction yesterday of me falling face first into a cake would come true.

I was so worried, I could only stomach lemonade again. "Bella," Edward lightly growled when he saw all I was getting.

"I'm not hungry," I whispered back. He paid before I could even get my money out. I glared at him. He smiled and then sighed as we walked to our table.

"You really should eat something more. I saw that they had pepperoni pizza today," he tried to encourage me. I shook my head and sat down next to Angela.

"Hi, Bella!" Angela smiled at me. She noticed I only had a lemonade but didn't say anything. Alice, sitting across from Edward now, eyed the lemonade and her eyes narrowed on me.

"I'm making a German chocolate and a carrot cake for the cakewalk. What are you planning on making," Angela asked, curious. Ewww. Carrot.

I played, absent mindedly with the cap on the table. "Well, I made chocolate cake and yellow cake last night," I told her truthfully. "And I'll make a white cake tonight," I said as I started to look back up.

"Those sound great, Bella," Angela told me.

I heard Alice squeal. I glanced over at her. "This will be so much fun!" she said, echoing her words from yesterday when I got into the mess. I groaned.

Edward pulled me closer to him, his arm around my waist. Alice rolled her eyes. "Really, Bella. Stop worrying so much. Everything will end up perfect," she told me.

"Of course it will," Ben piped in. He had been reading one of his comic books. I think it was Watchmen right now. Angela smiled encouragingly at me. It wasn't that I didn't have faith in Alice, it was that past experiences involving me, cake, and anything resembling parties weren't exactly good. And I didn't mean just the whole 18th birthday incident. Actually, a cut arm and Jasper going crazy was pretty tame compared to the whole broken leg and concussion I had during my sixth birthday. Or the disaster sleepover for Megan Bedell's 10th birthday… or the…

Edward stopped my train of thought with a kiss to the top of my head. "Esme will help," he whispered. And so we all sat at the table for the rest of the lunch period, talking about the upcoming fund raising fair. When the bell rang, I dreaded the next two periods that would, no doubt, drag like the rest of the day had so far.

I was right. They dragged. Edward did try to help. He kept writing notes to me in the margins of my notebook. He was trying to cheer me up. The problem was I didn't want to be cheered up; I wanted to wallow in my worry and think about cakes, Lauren, the Volturi, Victoria, and all my other problems that just liked to mount on. Being a human was less and less amusing each and every passing day.

Edward held me close as we walked out to the Volvo. Alice danced around happily, splashing in the puddles in her new designer goulashes. He opened the door for me and I sat quietly in the passenger seat. Once Alice and Edward got in, a nanosecond later, Alice crossed her arms and looked at me. "Oh cheer up, Bella. You are going to drive Jasper nuts with your current mood," she complained.

"Sorry," I mumbled, looking out the window as we went towards the Cullen mansion. Edward parked the car in the garage and Alice danced her way out, giggling, as she ran up towards the house. Before I could think to reach for the door handle, Edward opened my door and swept me up into his arms.

"Put me down," I demanded. He grinned.

"No," was all he said, smiling at me.

I tried to pout. I really did. I even managed to cross my arms for all of a second before I felt compelled to look into his face. My arms snaked their way around his neck. His face came closer to mine, his lips just brushed the side of my mouth. I closed my eyes as he lightly placed his lips on mine.

"Geez, you two, get a room!" I heard a loud, booming voice laugh. I also heard someone hit him. "Hey!" he complained.

Edward pulled back and looked into my eyes. "Better?" he whispered.

"Much," I told him, unable to lie when he's dazzling me like that! Edward gently put me down and placed an arm around my waist. Emmett, grinning, came bounding over. I could see Rosalie, looking slightly annoyed –although not nearly as annoyed as she normally does- at him.

"You going to bake some more today?" he asked.

"Yeah, I've still got another cake to do," I mumbled.

Emmett looked confused for a second and then I saw Edward's lips move. Emmett just grinned in response. "Don't worry, lil sis! Esme will help!" he told me and mussed up my hair. I managed a weak smile in response. I did like it that Emmett already thought of me as his little sister.

"We've got to go, Emmett," Rosalie sighed and came to drag her husband away. Before getting into the jeep, she turned to me and Edward. "Bye, Bella," she said smiling slightly.

"Bye, Rose," I told her, surprised that she actually spoke to me.

Emmett backed up and shifted the truck into drive yelling "Bye Bella! Bye Edward!" before heading down the long driveway. We both waved to the disappearing jeep.

Edward led me up to the front door. Inside, I could hear Alice babbling on about her day already to someone. I figured it had to be either Esme or Jasper. Carlisle was probably still at the hospital.

Opening the door, I went inside with Edward following me. Esme came up to great us instantly. She hugged me first, since I was closer, and then Edward. "Did you two have a good day today?" she asked.

"School was fine," I responded. No need to tell her about how it dragged on and I thought it was never going to end.

Edward looked at me and raised an eyebrow before turning back to his mother. "Bella was quite agitated today. I think she's worried about the fair tomorrow," he told her. I glared at him.

Esme laughed and gently and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, taking me away from Edward. "It will be fine, sweetheart! Come on, we'll finish up the cakes together," she told me. And so, Esme lead me back to the kitchen to work on the last of the cakes. I just hope all three survive until the fair tomorrow and no one tries to sabotage this.

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**Author's Note:** This one is short, I know. It didn't seem like nearly as many people as I thought liked the long one so I went with a short one this time. Next time on Twilight Fluff: Esme, take two!


	10. Probatum est

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** First of all, not mine. Not in the least. The only things I own are a nice little townhome, a dog, and enough clothing to make even Alice's closet look scant. Twilight, not so much. Although, if it has the Cullen Crest on it, I like to at least think it's mine.

**Summary:** Pure fluff. With extra fluff. This is slightly out of sequence with the stories but it basically somewhere in Eclipse. I wanted to do a Mother/Daughter fluff scene with Bella and Esme making a cake. The only reason I could come up with for Bella making a cake was to have a fund raiser of some sort so...hence the Senior Trip that never happened in the books! This is now totally family fluff. And yes, once this one is done, I already have another fluffy idea in my head.

**Author's Note:** Many, many thanks to CauldronCakeBaker! Your cake pictures really did help me with WAY too many ideas. I just hope I do this justice.

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Chapter 10

Esme lead me into the kitchen. On the island was the mixing bowl that I wasn't terrified of breaking, all the spoons, and ingredients. There was also a large ball of…something wrapped in blue plastic wrap. It looked sort of like a really big jawbreaker but I doubted that was what it was. Esme caught me looking at the ball wrapped in plastic wrap and smiled.

"It's Fondant icing, sweetheart," she told me. Fondant? I hadn't ever bothered with something that…complicated before because it always sounded too hard and too long to make. I'd seen pictures though of what could be done with it. I was nowhere near coordinated or creative enough to do more than slap some buttermilk icing on a cake though. Knowing Esme, she probably could make any of my cakes look like something more fit for a wedding than for the Fork's High School Senior Class Fair. I sighed.

"If you don't want to use it, that's alright," Esme said, a hint of worry in her voice. I looked at her and gave her a slight smile.

"No, Esme, that's fine. I've just never worked with that before," I told her truthfully. Well, that, and I was sure that I'd somehow ruin Esme's perfect icing ball. I was good with buttermilk icing because I knew what I was doing with it. Fondant icing might end up looking like a poorly scraped animal hide if she let me roll it out and cover the cake with it.

Esme smiled at me, a renewed hint of excitement in her eyes. "Good. I would have loved your help with it this morning," she told me, turning to get the scissors on the counter behind her. This morning? As in hours ago? "The icing needs about 8 hours to cool," she informed me further. If it took eight hours then she must have made this long before the sun came up. I guess that's one of the pluses of being a vampire, eternal insomnia.

"You didn't have to do that, Esme," I told her. She was really working hard to help me with my project. The project I got tricked into doing really.

"I wanted to, dear," she said as she cut the white cake mix and put it into the mixing bowl. I got the oil and water to pour those in. Esme went to grab the eggs and I bit my lip.

"Esme?" I asked. I wanted to thank her. I wanted to talk to her like I use to talk to my mother. I knew I could but at the same time I couldn't. It was much to hard to express my feelings. I knew it was one of those traits I got from Charlie.

"Yes, dear?" she responded, about to crack the eggs. I realized she was just going to put the entire egg in, whites and yoke, like last time. I had to stop her.

"Oh, for this cake, we just need the whites," I told her, moving around the island to help. Esme looked confused but let me take over. I cracked the egg on the side of the bowl and carefully used half the egg shell to cradle the yoke while the whites dripped into the bowl below. My fingers got all gunky, of course, but it worked! Esme watched as I put the egg into the bowl.

"The yoke makes the color different and it makes it taste a bit different too," I explained. I motioned with my head towards the other egg. "Did you want to try that one?" I asked, my hands still above the bowl with eggs shells in one hand and egg dripping off of both. It was gross but the cake would taste good.

"Maybe you should do it and then we can clean you up," she said teasingly and reached for the paper towels. I nodded and grabbed the other egg to break it too. I made sure only to get the whites into the cake.

As I was trying to separate the whites of the egg from the yoke, and trying to get more of the whites into the bowl than on me, I saw Esme walk around the island towards the kitchen doorway from the corner of my eyes. "You are home early," she said happily. I could just make out the figure that I knew to be Carlisle.

Carlisle wrapped his arms around Esme and gave her a light kiss. "Dr. Snow got called in early and decided to take over my appointments for the rest of the day," I heard him say lightly. I could feel his eyes on me as I put the egg shells in the trash can and went to wash my hands. "Still cake making I see," he mused as both he and Esme walked back over to the island, his arm around her waist.

"Yeah. I needed three for tomorrow," I said, still not happy that I have to make three cakes. One would have been fine. And, technically, I made four but the spice cake didn't really count since it was just fun to do something with Emmett and Jasper for a while. That, and I did win the bet I never really entered.

I looked up at them and smiled a bit. "Thank you for letting me use the kitchen for all this," I told them both. I was really grateful. There was NO way I could have done this in Charlie's kitchen with the one 8"x8" pan. That, and without Esme's help, I'm sure I would have messed up and burnt one of the cakes or done something else wrong.

"Of course, sweetheart!" Esme said, coming over to hug my shoulders.

Carlisle smiled gently at me. "You are always welcome here, Bella," he told me. I blushed. I couldn't help it. It was nice just be around well, family.

Carlisle took a seat on the barstool. "So, what else is there to do in this cake baking?" he asked amused. He began to pick up the vegetable oil but Esme slapped his hand. Carlisle looked up at her, pretending to be hurt. Esme rolled her eyes slightly and Carlisle smiled back at her.

"Well, right now, I just need to mix all this up and then pour the batter into the pans," I told him, looking for the whisk or the wooden spoon. I know they were around here just a second ago.

"I'll get that, dear," Esme said as she picked up the bowl and, using the whisk – I knew I had seen it!- mixed up the entire thing in 30 seconds. It was probably less than 30 second but, including the time of me marveling over the fact that everyone was far better than me at stirring all the ingredients together, it was 30 seconds.

"Okay," I said and looked for the two cake pans I had spotted yesterday. I wanted to do a round layer cake.

Esme looked a bit worried when I turned to her to ask where the cake pans were. "I hope you don't mind, but I saw this lovely picture last night on the internet," she told me. Esme handed me a print out of a beautiful cake. It had a bigger cake on the bottom with a smaller cake stacked on top. Both were covered in white smooth icing and had red ribbons across them to make the cake look like two boxes wrapped together. It looked like the perfect, edible present.

"Wow, Esme! That's pretty," I said. I loved the simple but elegant lines and how the ribbons looked on this pretty cake. It was nothing I could do, ever, but it was pretty.

"I thought we might try that one," Esme said cheerfully. I looked up at her. There is no way I could do something like that. My cake would have wrinkles and the icing would be uneven. That's fine with buttercream icing but not so much with fondant. Her face fell a bit when she saw my expression. I think I heard Carlisle chuckle.

"I don't know, Esme. I haven't used that type of icing before," I told her. I hated the look on her face. I didn't want to disappoint my second mother. I also didn't want to hear Lauren for the rest of the school year go on about the horrible cake I handed in for the cakewalk that looked like someone had left it in the freezer and just taken it out.

"Why don't you try it?" Carlisle said. I looked up at him, sitting there on where I normally sat. "If it doesn't work out, you can always make another cake, correct?" he more stated than asked.

I groaned at that. I didn't want to make another cake. I wanted to simply have this one done, somehow magically get all three of these iced and into the gym for the fair…and not tripping or otherwise destroying them in the process. Both Esme and Carlisle looked at me funny.

"Don't you like baking?" Esme asked me, worried. She was wringing the kitchen towel as she spoke. She must have thought I didn't want to spend time with her and that I didn't like this whole cake making thing.

"Oh no! It's not that," I said quickly to alleviate her worry. I felt both Carlisle and Esme's eyes on me. I looked down at my hands. "I'm just worried that…if I do it…it won't look right," I almost whispered. I'm glad they were vampires, they'd have no problems hearing me.

"It will look fine, Bella. But that's not all, is it?" Carlisle questioned. Darn perceptive vampires… I shook my head and felt Esme's arm back around my shoulders. They were both waiting for me to say something more.

"I just…" I bit my lip, thinking it over. How could I explain? "Lauren made a comment and that got Alice all mad. And then Lauren said that if I was really as good as Alice said at baking that I should make all the cakes for the cakewalk and she's now expecting me to fail. I totally know I will because I might just trip and fall into the cake like Lauren said or something like that," I muttered the last part. It came out in fast and I looked back down after my mini rant. I didn't have to look at Carlisle to know he was trying very hard to bite back his laughter. Esme squeezed my shoulders.

"Bella, sweetheart, don't worry about Lauren," she told me. I looked up and could tell that Esme and Carlisle were talking to each other even though I couldn't hear it.

Carlisle smiled at me. "Don't worry, Bella," he said after a minute. I fought back the urge to mumble an _easy for you to say_ and just continued to pout a bit. "We'll have Edward and Alice carry the cakes in for you in the morning," he continued. It wasn't hard to hear the humor in his voice.

"Thanks," I mumbled.

"Do you want to try to make this cake," Esme started, gesturing to the print out, "or do you want to make something else?" she asked. I really didn't want Esme's hard work to go to waste but I also knew that if I tried to do that, her hard work would go to waste anyway. As soon as I thought about speaking again, Carlisle stood up and started to come around the island.

"If you use the fondant icing, could I also help?" he asked. Wait my two vampire parents both wanted to help? Well, maybe, just maybe if they both helped it wouldn't look too terrible. Or was this part of the vampire conspiracy?

"Okay, but we don't have enough batter to do that," I said. "We can make the top portion and by using two cake pans of the same size?" I asked, seeing if either or both of them liked this idea.

"That sounds perfect," Esme smiled warmly. Carlisle pulled out two cake pans, both 8"x8"'s and put them on the island.

I went to pick up the bowl but Carlisle beat me to it. "Even batter in both?" he asked as he began to pour. "Um, yeah," I stammered. Esme gave him a scolding look.

Once he had the batter in both perfectly even, and I mean perfectly -I doubt that there was even the slightest difference between them-, he went to place the cake pans in the oven. Once the door was shut and the cakes were in, Carlisle turned to me and was about to say something when…

"Oh! Good! Bella, you've got to come with me," Alice said so fast, grabbing my hand to drag me out, that I barely caught it. Carlisle just shook his head at his daughter.

"Alice!" I lightly shouted at her. She stopped in the doorway and turned to me. "I need your help, Bella! Remember that game I told you about yesterday?" she said. I thought about it and I remembered something about Alice needing help with a game but I couldn't remember what for.

"Yeah…..?" I asked hoping she would explain more. She didn't.

"Good!" she stated as she continued to drag me out of the kitchen, away from her parents, and towards the front door.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked her as I stumbled while she dragged me to go outside.

"Just the front yard. I need your help, Bella," she told me as she stopped in front of me on the porch.

"With what, Alice?" I asked her, curious. All these vampires and needing my "help" lately...

"Well, I agreed to make one of the games," she started. "And I _think_ it's okay but we need you to test it out," she finished, pointing to the front yard. There I saw Jasper and Edward swinging...hackeysacks at a board that was painted like a clown and had holes in it. I couldn't read it from here but I knew each of the holes in the board had a number above it. I've seen this game before. Normally, though, you were standing maybe twenty feet away, not a hundred. "So," Alice asked cheerfully, "will you help?"

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**Author's Note:** Sorry if this is an off chapter. Today has been an off, unending, day. I promise to get back to the nonsense in the next chapter. After all it will have Alice and some sort of game! Then, back to Esme, Carlisle, and the white cake....with the two vampire parents trying to help her decorate it. It should be amusing.


	11. Fortes fortuna adiuvat

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** Of these do I own, a home, a carriage of blue, a goodly dog, and many fine silks awaiting to be put to the seamstress' hand, but of Twilight, I own not.

**Summary:** Bella has to make three cakes for the senior class fund raising fair and Esme helps! Family fluff insues!

**Author's Note:** Sorry this one took a bit. I have my own little rule; I need to write one chapter of my other story in order to write one of this one. Writing over 5,000 words in a drastic attempt to sound sort of like John Milton while still trying to make your point understandable to most people without them running to the dictionary every three seconds or having to read the entire story out loud? Not easy. But I did it! I hope…

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Chapter 11 – not, this story isn't filing (I couldn't help it, sorry!)

I stood there with Alice on the front porch for a bit watching the two boys. When they got like this they were no longer her husband and my boyfriend, they were boys. Jasper was taking direct aims at the center hole of the board and getting the hackeysacks through the clown's mouth with ease.

I'd be lucky when they moved the line up from 100 feet to 20 to even hit the board at all. I'm sure most humans could at that distance at least hit the board, but knowing me, I'd let go of the hackeysack too quickly have it fly into the woods and accidentally kill a bird or something. I'm not entirely sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing around vegetarian vampires.

Edward had one of the hackeysacks too. He was bouncing it like it was a soccer ball from one knee to the other, on his head, over his head, and then kicking it back again. The little cloth square filled with probably dried peas or who knows what kept bouncing around Edward's form and I couldn't take my eyes away. Well, until Alice caught me and giggled. Then I looked down and blushed.

I wished I didn't because the next thing I heard was a smack. I turned around to see Edward standing there, the hackeysack he had been playing with in his hand and Jasper looking at him. Edward looked to mouth the word "oops" from here but he might have said it. With that, Jasper lunged at Edward.

Alice, right next to me, sighed and sat down on the front porch steps, putting her chin in her hands. I was terrified. What if Jasper hurt my Edward? What if Edward hurt Jasper? I bit my bottom lip, worried. Alice just sighed again, exasperated. "They'll be fine, Bella. They are just being _boys_," she told me, clearly annoyed but not worried. She patted the step next to her and I sat down.

"You'd think after sixty years of this they might actually get bored of trying to antagonize each other," Alice muttered before turning to me. "Once they are done _fighting_," she started before turning to the white blurry cloud of the two wrestling in the front lawn. I wonder if they'll put the lawn back together before Esme or Carlisle sees it…. "And not breaking the throwing game!" she shouted at the wrestling pair only to turn back to me and shake her head. "Then I'd like for you to try it, okay?" she asked sweetly.

"Alice, you know I can't throw. I'll…break something or destroy something or…," I stammered. Alice cut me off.

"Isabella Marie, I've already seen it and you'll do no such thing," Alice stated; it was rather weird to hear that much authority coming out of such a little person.

"Fine," I sighed. "But if you've already seen it, then why do I have too…" I started when Alice suddenly grabbed my hand to pull me up.

"Come on, they're finished being _boys_," Alice told me. She pulled me towards where they had just been wrestling. The yard was a little bit messed up but not nearly as bad as yesterday.

Alice bounced over to them, as both were finishing dusting themselves off. Grass stains were all over Jasper's jeans but I couldn't see any on Edward's since he had on his black denim. "I got her away from Esme and Carlisle for exactly 32 more minutes," Alice said happily.

Edward looked up and smiled at me. "Hello, Love," his velvety voice said just above a whisper as he walked over to me. "Hi," I said back, my own voice sounding a bit raspy to my ears.

"Do you two mind?" I heard Jasper grumble near us. I turned to look at him, wondering what the heck he was talking about until I felt Edward smirking for two feet away. Oh yeah, that whole emotional thing. Got it. I blushed again, not sure if my previous blush ever went away.

"Bella's going to help us figure out the right distance for this game," Alice chirped. I groaned.

"Bella," Alice warned.

Edward smirked again. "Don't worry, Love," he said as he began to toss a hackeysack back and forth from one hand to the other. "I doubt even you could hurt anything around here with a hackeysack," he told me smiling.

My eyes narrowed at him and I gazed past him at the surrounding forest. "I don't know. Are there any birds around?" I asked. Jasper and Edward both laughed at that.

Alice, on the other hand, clearly exasperated, went and grabbed one of the hackeysacks from an old wooden bucket nearby. "Just try it, Bella," she told me.

I took the seemingly innocent looking square of yellow calico cloth that looked oddly familiar and felt a little off. What had they put in these things? I trudged up to the board and stood where I guessed twenty feet was from the board.

Now that I was closer I could see the board clearly. The board had a clown painted on it holding two balloons. A small hole, just slightly bigger than the hackeysack, was where the clown's mouth was. Other holes, getting bigger as you got out from the center of the board –the mouth-, were placed randomly around the clown. One was through his hat, another through the balloons. I looked at the clown and blinked. "Umm, guys?" I asked and turned around to face them. "Is that supposed to be It?" I asked. I remembered It the clown from when my Mom had been in a Stephen King phase when I was about 7 or 8. I'm probably the only kid that didn't find the clown the least bit scary.

"Why? What's the matter with the game?" Jasper asked.

"I copied it exactly from the internet!" Alice complained. Edward just looked at me curious.

"Which site on the internet Alice?" I asked, curious. Something told me it probably was a Halloween or Friday the 13th site that was devoted to "scary" haunted houses.

"It was just someone's blog and they said they made this for a festival in their town and that it was really popular. Why?" Alice asked. The other two were also growing in their curiosity.

"When was the blog entry dated, Alice?" I asked.

"November 2, 2006. Why is that important?" she demanded, growing impatient. Jasper moved to put an arm around his wife, a slight smile to his face. He must have been reading my amused mood and guessed that something was really funny about all this.

"Alice…." I sighed. "November 2? Two days after Halloween? I bet that was a Halloween Festival," I told them before looking back at the board. Yeap, definitely It. I really want to add speakers to it and have random phrases come out through the board like "We all float down here!" …but that wouldn't help Edward and Alice out at all given that most of the student body is already scared of them. Making them terrified wouldn't help much.

Alice looked at me for a second. "Wait, is that supposed to be scary?" she asked, pointing to the board.

"Yeah, it's It," I told them, again. All three vampires looked confused. "You know? Stephen King? It?" I asked.

Some hint of realization came across their faces. "I don't remember him being quite that descriptive," Edward mused as he gazed between me and the board.

"He wasn't, I don't think," Jasper agreed, pinching his chin in thought as he looked at the board too.

"No, no," I sighed, getting slightly frustrated. I know they watched TV. We were all watching Battlestar Gallatica just last Friday! All three eyes immediately returned to me. "The movie! Didn't you ever see the movie?" I asked them.

"No," all three answered at various times.

"That looks exactly like the movie clown. That's probably why it was popular at what was most likely a Halloween festival. You'd get to throw stuff at It," I told them. Realization dawned on all their faces. Edward bit back laughter, Jasper looked amused, and Alice's little mouth formed a small "o".

I looked at the board again. "I remember when I saw it at Megan Bedell's 10th birthday party sleep over," I mused out loud, not really meaning too. Megan had allowed me to pick a movie and I loved It because I thought it was funny. A serial killer clown that tricked kids into going into the sewers? Sewers were wet and gross and I didn't understand why anyone wouldn't immediately run to their Mom at the time and tell her that some guy was in the sewer outside trying to lure them down. It seemed stupid which made it funny, to me. Apparently, not so to the rest of my fifth grade class at the time. Two of the girls had to go to "counseling" for the next couple of months and everyone else had nightmares for a while afterwards. When the school counselor asked me about it, I told him I exactly what I thought about it. He didn't bother me much after that.

Edward slipped his arms around me. "Was the movie frightening?" he asked me, kissing me on my temple.

"Huh? Oh ummm…no. I was the one that picked it out," I muttered, remembering the whole ordeal. Few of the girls would speak to me after that.

Edward stood perfectly still, his arms wrapped around me. Jasper was trying to hold back a laugh and failing miserably. Alice just looked at me. "If it's that scary, why did you want to watch it?" she asked.

"Well, _I_ didn't find it scary," I muttered. "Just everyone else did."

That's it. Jasper lost it and started to laugh. "Of course _you_ wouldn't," he said between laughter. Edward growled lightly at his brother.

Alice sighed again and walked over to the board. "I'll repaint it with something else," she said.

"Yes, something that won't start the Addams Family jokes, please," Edward teased lightly. Alice growled at him.

"What's the matter with the game, guys?" I heard Emmett say as both he and Rosalie walked over. I smiled at both of them.

"Bella says the game is too scary," Jasper informed him, most of the traces of laughter gone from his voice.

"Aww, Bella, scared of clowns?" Emmett grinned.

"No, Emmett. I didn't think the game was too scary for me. But everyone else might have a problem with a painting of Stephen King's It for the stupid fair," I informed him from the safety of Edward's arms. I watched as Alice carried the board away to the back of the house to repaint it. I wonder what she would paint over it. Maybe I should double check it. I don't want her to mistake Jason for a hockey player or something….

"Stephen King?" Emmett asked, now looking more confused than amused. "Like that guy that writes all those horror novels and all?" he asked.

"Yeah, those things you never read," Jasper teased which got Emmett to charge him …which involved another wrestling match on the front lawn. Edward quickly pulled me back a few dozen yards so I'd stay out of the way.

Rosalie rolled her eyes at her husband and walked over to me and Edward. "The clown looks like the one from the book?" she asked, curious.

"I'm not sure about the book but he looked like the one in the movie. It really frightened all the other girls in my fifth grade class," I told her with a shrug. No need to mention how Alyssa and Christy went through two months of counseling because of the movie I picked out.

Rosalie raised her eyebrow at that. "And not you?" she asked. I sighed. It figured. I didn't have to have Edward's ability to know what they were all thinking. Of course it wouldn't scare me, as far as they could tell, nothing scared me…except for Edward leaving. The possibility of that terrified me to no end.

I felt Edward kiss the top of my head. I was safe. Edward was here with me and so was the rest of his family. Nothing else mattered other than that. Not the Volturi, Victoria, the newborns, Lauren, or this stupid cakewalk. All that mattered was I had _my_ family here.

"No, I thought it was…funny," I muttered, looking down, my arms automatically covering Edward's. I could almost hear Rosalie roll her eyes. I did hear Emmett laugh while still fighting with Jasper.

"Funny?" Edward asked, gently letting me go. He was suddenly looking at me, curious again. I shrugged.

"Bella," he warned. He didn't like when I didn't answer his questions given that he couldn't just snatch the answer from my mind unlike everyone else. Rosalie stood there, curious too I guess. I looked back down at my shoes, a blush starting to creep up.

I knew it was hopeless not to say anything. Edward would just dazzle the answer out of me anyway so I spoke up. "It just seemed ridiculous to me," I started. Edward pulled my chin up so I could face them. Emmett and Jasper had finished fighting now and joined the semi circle around me. I sighed again.

"I mean, what kind of kid would even think of going down into some cold, wet, gross sewer because some clown lived down there? Why didn't the kids just run away?" I told them. None of them said anything for a couple of seconds. Then Emmett burst into hysterical laughter, followed by Jasper and even my Edward. Rosalie shook her head and smiled at me.

Alice came back over at that point and looked at everyone. "What's so funny?" she asked.

"Bella!" Emmett said between fits of laughter. I huffed at that. Yes, yes, it's perfectly hilarious that the person that spends most of her time around blood drinking vampires or, sometimes, around werewolves, doesn't get why the kids didn't just runaway from the clown. After all, isn't that what Edward always expects me to do? Run away from his family, screaming? Of course, that won't happen, ever. I loved Edward too much. I'd much rather die than ever be without him again.

Alice smirked. "Come on, Bella. I need to make sure that the picture I'm going to do for the game is okay _this_ time," she told me, taking my hand and leading me up to the house. Edward followed a hackeysack back in his hand as he tossed it back and forth lightly.

Even with Alice's grip on my hand, I still managed to trip on the top porch stair. Edward caught me, an arm around my waist. "Really, Bella," he teased. Once I was upright again, he kissed me on my forehead. Alice then continued to lead me into the house and over to the computer.

"Now, I thought about just doing all balloons since I think those are safe but they don't look nearly as fun as painting a face so who do you think we should paint?" Alice asked as she sat down at the computer.

"We?" I asked, worried. I wasn't exactly good at painting. I wasn't bad but I knew better than to ruin Alice's hard work.

"Me and Edward, Bella," she said, exasperated. "Now, who do you think we should try to paint?" she asked again.

"Ummm, Voldemort?" I more asked than answered. It was the first thing that popped into my head. After all, they needed someone that people would want to hit but not someone that might have been responsible for childhood traumas for a good portion of the high school.

"Voldemort? Isn't he supposed to be scary, Love?" Edward asked as Alice typed something into the computer.

"Well, yeah, but he's not terrifying like It was," I tried to explain.

Alice closed her eyes and reopened them a few seconds later. Edward nodded at her. I guess Alice had a vision and Edward saw it too. "Voldemort it is! Thanks, Bella" Alice told me.

"Sure, sure," I told her. I wondered when the white cake would be done so that Esme and now Carlisle and I could ice it. Or, I guess, put icing on it. From what little I knew, you rolled this type of icing out and laid it on top of the cake. You didn't just slap it on. I still preferred the slap on kind….mistakes weren't nearly as noticeable.

Edward moved closer to me. "Do want to go check on the cake?" he asked, amused.

"Yes, I think it should be done by now," I told him.

"One minute and 13 seconds," Alice piped up. We both just looked at her but she ignored us.

Edward took my hand, gently spun me around to face the kitchen and then placed his hand on the small of my back. The only thought going through my head as Edward led me to the kitchen was that I really hoped Esme and Carlisle didn't get upset with me when I would, inevitably, ruin the cake.

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**Author's Note:** So, out of curiostiy, how many of you had nightmares due to the clown, It? :-) I used to watch that and Polterguise for fun when I was like 9. I hoped y'all liked this chapter. More Esme and now Carlisle in the next one!


	12. Flexis sum, gluten est

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** Of these do I own, a home, a carriage of blue, a goodly dog, and many fine silks awaiting to be put to the seamstress' hand, but of Twilight, I own not.

**Summary:** Bella has to make three cakes for the senior class fund raising fair and Esme helps! Family fluff ensues!

**Author's Note:** I keep coming up with really silly ideas for this one. CauldronCakeBaker is helping me figure out even more silly ideas. ;-) I haven't worked with fondant icing personally but I know a lot people that do. I'm more of a buttercream, royal, or just drizzle caramel over it type of girl. Actually powdered sugar on top of strawberry shortcake? Yum. And now that you are all starving all the sudden….

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Chapter 12

Edward led me into the kitchen and found a slightly upset Esme with Carlisle's arm around her waist. Esme immediately came up to Edward. "You are to go out there and fix the yard again, young man," she ordered him in her motherly tone. It was kind of funny a 100+ year old sounded like he might get grounded if he dared to disobey. I kept bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing.

Rather than arguing, Edward nodded to his mom. "Yes, Esme," he told her. He kissed me lightly in front of his "parents' and then ran out the door to go fix the lawn. He had messed it up, again, with Jasper in their little fight before I pointed out It on the board.

Esme watched as he left and then turned to me, smiling. Carlisle was chuckling lightly behind the island counter. Esme turned to him and put her hands on her hips. "You didn't see it earlier," she told him.

Carlisle smiled. "As long as it's only grass and a few trees that gets harmed, I don't think that it's anymore than sport," he told her. That only got one of the "Mom" glares from Esme directed at Carlisle!

"I like the trees where they are and they shouldn't rough house so much," she told him. I heard her mutter something else but I couldn't make it out. She turned back to me, a smile back on her face. Her eyes looked all lit up like she was really excited about this. "Do you want to help me form the bow for the cake, sweetheart? I think it will harden by the time the cakes cool," she said.

Right about then, the oven beeped and I automatically walked a bit to fast to retrieve the cakes. Esme had already gotten the door open but I still wanted to check them when I ran my elbow into the island counter. I bit my lip and rubbed my elbow, flinching still as Esme placed the cakes on the counter to cool. "Did you check them?" I asked. Carlisle chuckled at me from seeing me ram my arm into the counter. I slightly glared at my other father.

"Yes, and they both came out clean," she told me happily.

"It's not funny," I mumbled to Carlisle.

"It's never funny when you hit your funny bone," he teased back. Esme rolled her eyes at that while I looked down and blushed.

"Ignore him, dear," Esme told me as she wrapped one of her arms around my shoulders. I smiled weakly at her and saw she had another question in her eyes. I waited for it.

"Can we put the cakes in the icebox or outside to help them cool off more quickly?" she asked.

"That would be a great idea, Esme!" I told her truthfully. If she put them in the fridge or outside, the cakes would get to room temperature, if not colder, in a matter of minutes rather than a couple of hours. We could ice them and then all I'd have to worry about it the cakes getting to school. Although, Carlisle did say that Edward and Alice would take care of that part too. I felt like I could finally see the end of all this cakewalk and fair nonsense.

Esme put the cakes in the refrigerator and then, before I realized she was even gone she pulled me over to the big icing ball. The blue plastic wrap now laid perfectly evenly on the counter surface and was lightly sprinkled with more powdered sugar. With her free hand, she pulled out a beautiful antique roller pin. I knew it was an antique instantly because –besides the point it was Esme's- I'd never seen one look exactly like it before. The roller itself looked like it was made of porcelain with it's white surface and floral designs on it. The handles were wood and, amazingly, had blue flecks of paint chipped off them. It was old, gorgeous, and very breakable from the look of it. There was no way I was about to touch it. Esme offered me the roller pin, "Do you want to roll the icing out?"

I looked at the roller pin and my eyes got wide. My elbow still smarted from walking into the counter, they knew perfectly well how clumsy I was, and yet here was Esme offering me this pretty antique to play with. "I'll break it," I told her, sure I would. Carlisle chuckled.

"I doubt it, Bella," he said, taking it from Esme gently and then dropping it on the floor to demonstrate its durability. I watched in amazement as the pin just rolled slightly on the floor and rested in between all of us.

Esme smiled at me. "I think it's held up pretty well since Rosalie use to throw it at Emmett," she said in remembrance. "I had to redecorate and replaster this one wall in our home in the Midwest at least three times because of this rolling pin," she told me.

Carlisle handed the pin back over to me and I took it hesitantly. "Don't worry, Bella. You can't break it," he told me kindly. As I took it in my hands I mumbled, "Don't be so sure about that." He smiled in response. Of course, if this thing had managed to go up a wall and probably even over Emmett's head a couple of times, then it probably was about as indestructible as you could get when it came to delicate looking things.

I slowly took the roller pin and went to put it on the icing to roll it out when Esme stopped me. "I think you have to put powdered sugar on it first, dear," she told me handing me the box.

"Thanks, Esme," I told her. I should have known that. I was use to putting flour on my simple wooden roller pin at home before rolling out the dough. I doubted icing was much different. We used just a very slight amount of water so the powdered sugar would stick to the pin before I started to roll it out.

Although it didn't look it, it was really sticky stuff. It looked like colorless play-dough but felt more like a cross between toothpaste and pottery clay. It kept sticking to the pin no matter what I did. I sighed in frustration at the half flattened semi-circular piece of lumpy icing that was in front of me.

"May I?" I heard Carlisle asked. I easily stepped a way, glaring at the inanimate object of sweet yumminess that had gotten the better of me, to allow Carlisle his turn at the thing. After all, Carlisle is really the only one that hasn't helped out yet in this cake making. He should get his turn even if it's just to roll out the icing.

He took over with the roller pin and started to roll the icing at human speed only to find out how sticky it really was. "Hmm," he voiced. "Powdered sugar?" he asked in general to the room as if he were in the middle of an operation. Esme shook her head, trying not to laugh, and handed him the box. "Thanks," he muttered as she sprinkled some more down to hopefully dilute the stickiness. I climbed on to my barstool to watch in fascination at this operation of sugar proportions.

Carlisle started to roll the icing again, this time at vampire speed. The roller pin was too quick, I guess, for the adhesive of the icing to really stick to it. Once again, something they are better at than I am. Oh well, at least I can break eggs.

Once the icing was perfectly flat, in a near circle, Carlisle inspected his work and put the roller pin to the side. It rolled off the kitchen island but Esme caught it nimbly. "Scalpel?" Carlisle asked and then realized his mistake. "I mean knife…please?" he said as he looked up, embarrassed. Both Esme and I laughed.

"Here you go dear," Esme said as she handed over the knife, still laughing lightly. Carlisle took the knife and deftly cut a quick, straight line, across the center of the icing three times to give us two "ribbons". He also cut a slight bit off the edge to make a thin ribbon bow.

"I sent out Rose and Emmett for the icing markers earlier, dear, if you'd like to draw on the ribbons for the cake," Esme told me. "Or, if you prefer, we can use the food dye or leave them white," she continued, listing all my options.

"Thanks, Esme!" I said. Drawing might be fun. Maybe rather than the pretty red ribbons in the picture we could do ribbons with blue and yellow polka dots for the school colors. Polka dots aren't hard; those I could do. Although, I've never used the icing markers before and I don't know if they might bleed all over the place or not. Maybe the food dye was a safer alternative. But then, what if it didn't take the food dye? What if you were supposed to add the food dye before it cooled and the ribbons came out blotchy? Or worse, like the cake was bleeding? I couldn't afford to have Lauren laughing at me over that. Or for a cake to look like it was bleeding in a house full of vampires…with me involved. Someone might think I cut my hand while trying to make the icing and that was just bad.

Both Carlisle and Esme watched me as I thought this over. I looked down when I realized they were waiting for me and blushed. "Can we leave them plain?" I asked, hoping neither of my vampire parents would object.

"Of course," Esme said, smiling. I really hope she didn't mind. Carlisle smiled, his eyes showed he was curious but he didn't say anything. Instead, he took the smaller piece of icing and flipped it into a pretty looking bow.

Esme took the two halves of icing now and placed them back together. She took what looked like one of those plastic irons Charlie bought me for Christmas when I was four and used it to smooth out the line in between to two halves so that it became one big piece of icing again.

"Now," Esme said, going to pick up a piece of paper on the far counter, "it says we need to have buttermilk icing so that the fondant will stick properly." She looked up at me and smiled. "You know how to make that, don't you, dear?" Esme asked knowingly.

I nodded. "We just need a full box of powdered sugar, a stick of butter, the vanilla extract, and a little bit of milk," I informed Carlisle and Esme. A second later, everything we needed was right in front of me. You'd think that I'd get use to stuff like that but it still took me another second to realize what I was looking at.

"Okay," I said, hopping down from the barstool so I could put everything in the bowl and then mix it altogether.

"Do you mind if I try?" Carlisle asked. Esme smiled at him like she was proud of him.

"Um, sure," I said, happy to retake my barstool…only to find it not there and falling down to the floor. I heard a big booming laugh and a soft growl as well as two arms wrapped around me. I also realized I was now a good three feet away from where I previously was.

"Emmett!" Esme yelled at him. I figured it had to be him that took my seat. I felt Edward's lips on my hair. Carlisle looked towards Emmett disapprovingly.

"Aw, come on, I had to! She wasn't even looking! It's not like she'd get hurt or nothin' with all of us here," Emmett replied.

"You've got to be more careful, son," Carlisle reprimanded him.

"I'm okay, really," I told my group of assembled vampires from the safety of Edward's arms. He growled lightly at Emmett again only to have Emmett roll his eyes. Both Esme and Carlisle looked at me and smiled.

"What do I do first, Bella?" Carlisle asked. He looked really eager to learn how to make icing. I remember Edward mentioning Carlisle loved to learn…

"Well, you," I started but got interrupted by Emmett. He had picked up the vanilla extract and was opening the bottle again.

"This stuff is so…potent!" he said, making the same face he did yesterday when the bottle was open. Edward sighed and whispered just so I could barely hear, "He thought it would weaken over the past twenty four hours and wouldn't smell as strongly of Vanilla." I could hear the humor in Edward's voice as he told me.

Carlisle put his hand to his forehead and shook his head. "Emmett," he said, exasperated.

"What?" Emmett asked as he put the bottle back down. Even I could smell the slight hint of vanilla in the air. I could only imagine what it smelled like to them.

"Continue, dear," Esme encouraged me.

"Just put the entire box full of the powdered sugar in the bowl," I told him. Carlisle ripped the box open and was about to rip open the bag when Esme swiftly handed him the scissors. He smiled at her and used them to open the plastic bag, dumping the powdery contents into the bowl.

"Esme, why did you have to give him the scissors?" Emmett whined.

"Because I didn't want to see your idea for a prank anywhere near fulfilled," Esme answered in her warning mom tone.

"Prank?" Carlisle inquired, looking to his wife and son.

"Yeah, umm, I was thinking of setting up your office like an older powder room," Emmett told him, scratching the back of his head nervously. Carlisle looked confused for a second and then saw the powdered sugar in the bowl before him. He looked back at his son and smiled.

"Too bad, that would have been amusing," Carlisle told him. Edward smirked behind me.

"What's next?" Carlisle asked me, still excited about making icing.

"The butter. Just throw the whole stick in. And then just add a tablespoon of the milk and half a teaspoon of the vanilla," I told him. It was easier to get the whole thing out now rather than get interrupted by Emmett again.

I moved away from Edward, over to the kitchen island to inspect the icing making progress better. Emmett moved to give me my barstool back and I quickly hopped on. I watched the stool this time to make sure he didn't yank it out from under me. That caused Emmett to laugh, again. I just scowled at him. Edward stood right next to me, watching his brother carefully. This only made Emmett laugh harder.

"Then do I mix it all together?" Carlisle asked. I checked and all the ingredients were in perfect proportions inside the bowl.

"Yes. Mix it until its smooth," I told him. It didn't take long. In fact, I don't think it took more than five second after I said that for the bowl to go from having ingredients to having icing in it.

"Should I get the cakes so we can ice them now?" Esme asked. I nodded in response. I watched as she went to the fridge and pulled out the two cakes, both now cool from being in there for the past fifteen minutes or so. She put the two halves of the white cake in front of all of us on the kitchen island. Now, all that was left was to put icing on them. Sure, four vampires and a human icing a simple white cake. Nothing could go wrong, right?

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**Author's Note:** Sorry this took longer than normal. I kept going back and changing things. And then they blocked everything at work (AP news!?! You're blocking AP news? You've got to be kidding me!) and didn't unblock everything until an hour before I had to leave. Ugh. So, here is part one. Part two should be up in a couple of days.


	13. Abscindo femella ab chocolatem nunquam

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** Still not mine and never was. I'm just playing with them because they are fun and I'll hug 'em and squeeze 'em and keep 'em forever and ever. (Bonus points to who knows where I took that last part from!)

**Summary:** Bella has to make three cakes for the senior class fund raising fair and Esme helps! Family fluff ensues!

**Author's Note:** ….*giggles*….You really think Alice and Edward would have known better…. The title to this chapter says it all. *giggles*

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Abscindo femella ab chocolatem nunquam (Chapter 13)

I have learned my lesson. Never, ever say anything remotely like "What can go wrong". Ever. Not even mentally. It's like fate, God, and the universe combined love to trick me. Either that or Grandma Swan was right and there really is an evil Irish Lawyer named Murphy that follows the Swan family women around. I never knew what she meant until I moved to Forks. Murphy's Law has its epicenter right here.

I yelled at Edward. I wish I hadn't but he and Alice should have known a lot better than to ever even think of taking anything of mine to make the hackeysacks for the game. The look on his face broke my heart but I was too mad at him to care…much. Well, for the first few minutes. At least he's grounded now and so is Alice. Carlisle hid their keys to their respective cars. I think that hurt Alice a lot more than Edward.

We were about to ice the cake, put it together, and finally be done with the cake making part of this whole mess, when Jasper just had to get Emmett to come back out and play with him. Jasper threw one of the hackeysacks, a yellow calico one, at Emmett's head as hard as he could. The hackeysack burst at its seams and the contents of said hackeysack were spilled all over the floor around my, Emmett's and Edward's feet. I would have laughed at Emmett's expression except for finally clicking a couple of things together in my head.

The poor, worn, fabric of the hackeysack laid there on the floor all wrinkled in such a way that it reminded me of my favorite pajama bottoms. It was then I realized that it was my pajama bottoms, or at least a piece of them. I was about to go running out to go scream at Alice for daring to go through my closet –again- when I realized what else was at my feet. Around and probably under the flannel yellow calico cloth were small colorful circles that are universally known as M&M's. Yes, she stole my chocolate supply and my PJ's to make the stupid game for the stupid fair. Obviously, Alice really couldn't remember being a human, because otherwise, she would know chocolate supplies are not to be touched. Ever.

I think I heard Carlisle say "Jasper" in an exasperated tone about a half second after he threw the hackeysack. My eyes narrowed and, rather than laughing with Edward or smiling with Esme, I marched into the living room. I think I heard the murmur of voices behind me, still in the kitchen but I ignored them. I was determined to find Alice and demand to know why my favorite pajama bottoms were now scraps and why my chocolate supply laid half wasted on the kitchen floor. She was so going to answer for this.

Only Rosalie was in the living room by the time I got there though. I followed her eyes to the open back door and the swaying of the curtains. Coward. Alice didn't want to answer the human for destroying the human's stuff!

Rose looked tentatively at me, my eyes narrowed and my hands on my hips as I glowered at the open door. "She said to give you this," Rose stated as she handed me a piece of paper. I took it and opened the folded paper. It was written in a purple ink.

_Sorry! I'm so sorry, Bella. I'll buy you a new pair! I promise! It was Edward's idea about the chocolate, not mine. We didn't have anything else that would work around the house. I'll have a new pair of pajama bottoms for you when I come back from shopping._

_Love, Alice_

I grumbled as I clenched the piece of paper into a ball in my fist. I could hear Edward about to say something behind me when I turned around as quickly as I could. I didn't fall or trip. Instead, I stuck my finger at his chest and glared up at him. "You! You put the M&M's in the hackeysacks!" I screamed at him.

"Whoa…Edward is in trouble…" Emmett whispered, just loud enough for me to hear, to Jasper. Jasper was cringing and then I felt a sudden bit of calmness come over me.

"What is going on?" Carlisle asked as he came out of the kitchen, concerned. Esme was right next to him looking worried. I glared at Jasper.

"Stop that!" I told him before turning my attention back to Edward, mostly. I heard Jasper say something like "sorry" to Edward as my anger quickly reflared. How dare he mess with my chocolate supply!

"Edward," I almost sneered, I couldn't really. It came out with a glare though so that was a plus. I was really mad at him. "Used _my_ M&M's and Alice used _my_ favorite pair of PJ's to make the hackeysacks!" I shouted. Edward flinched. I was almost to mad to care. Almost. In reality, that was enough to calm me down. I think I heard Jasper smirk.

"Shut up, Jasper," I grumbled at him, looking down at the floor now, arms crossed over my chest.

"Is this true, Edward?" Carlisle asked. They didn't even ask permission! Why couldn't they just go to the store, like everyone else, and get dried peas or something other than my chocolate supply! You do not mess with a human's chocolate supply. It is the lifeblood of almost every human female on the planet! It would be like making a fur rug out of a grizzly bear and not letting Emmett drain it first while he watched you. It was cruel and unusual punishment.

"Yes, sir," Edward said. His voice sounded so sad. I couldn't look up at him yet. I still wanted to be mad at him and not just forgive him immediately. He had to learn and I knew if I looked up into his eyes, he'd just dazzle me into forgiving him. I was not going to let that happen.

"I take it neither of you asked permission to use Bella's things?" Carlisle more stated then asked.

"No, sir," Edward almost whispered. I could feel him reach for me and then pull back. I just humphed and turned around slightly, facing the rest of the family. Keeping my gaze very purposefully away from Edward was not easy. I concentrated on the M&M's and the piece of calico fabric spilled across the kitchen floor. Thinking on that would keep me angry enough to avoid looking at him.

"You and Alice needed to ask Bella before taking her things for your project," Carlisle told him. Edward should have already known that. I expect this kind of thing from Alice –stealing my clothing- but not from Edward! "Give me your keys. I'll get Alice's keys when she gets home," he told his son sternly.

I felt Edward leave my side and heard the keys hit Carlisle's palm. I also felt another pair of cool arms hug me tight. "We'll go finish the cake, alright, sweetheart?" Esme asked as she held me. I needed a mom right then and I'm glad it was Esme. I could feel those traitor tears on my face. I had been too angry earlier to notice they were going to make an appearance. I nodded into Esme's shoulder as she led me back to the kitchen. The remains of my favorite PJ bottoms and the M&Ms long gone from the kitchen floor.

Esme kept me by her side until I had calmed down. I can't believe Edward would do something like that. If he had asked, I probably would have let him have a few or helped by going to the store and getting something else to fill the hackeysacks with but instead he stole my M&Ms for some stupid game for the stupid fair that I didn't want to go to anymore but had to because I couldn't let Angela do this alone. Ugh!

Leaving me for only a second, Esme wetted one of the paper towels and, just like any other Mom, gently washed my face once I stopped crying. "Thanks, Esme," I whispered to her, now more hurt than anything. She smiled at me and hugged me tight again.

"Of course, dear," she said softly back. Carlisle entered into the kitchen about then.

"I grounded them both. I'm taking away Alice's credit cards and asked her to come home immediately," he said, probably more for my benefit than for Esme's. I just stayed glum until Esme gently pulled me back to face the two cakes.

"What do we do next?" she asked me. I managed to look at the two cakes and to my two other parents.

"Um, we need to get a cake platter to ice them," I told her.

Esme pulled out one of the really pretty glass ones –Depression glass, I checked with Renee last night- to use for the cake. My eyes went wide with shock. "No, Esme! We can just use a paper plate or something. Once it goes on the cake platter, that's what I'll have to carry it on," I told her.

"Oh, it's alright, Bella. I think it will showcase the cake perfectly and I need to get some new ones," she told me smiling. Before I could say anything more, Carlisle smiled at me.

"She's been looking through Good Housekeeping again and saw a few new ones she wanted. This is her excuse to get rid of this one," he informed me. Esme looked slightly embarrassed by this admission. Then I thought about it, Esme was the interior decorator of the family. She probably really was trying to get rid of them without simply throwing them away. Although, if either ended up in my hands, it would be just like throwing it away. I'd trip, it would smash, and that would be the end of the antique glass cake plate.

"Okay," I said as I moved to grab one of the pieces of the cake and dump it on to the cake platter. I was very careful not to touch the cake platter if I could avoid it. "We need to put a thick layer of icing between this piece and the other half of the cake," I told the two parental vampires.

"May I?" Carlisle asked. I nodded and I guess Esme did too. She gently put a hand on my shoulder and drew me back away from the cake as Carlisle picked up a knife to slap the icing on to the cake. He was about to put another chunk of icing on when I reached out to stop him automatically.

"It only needs to be about a ¼ inch think," I told him. And then I thought about the cake and how he's probably use to seeing them; out flat in a box with candles on them. "Right now, we only need it on top. I think we just need a thin layer over the entire thing," I told both Esme and Carlisle.

"Ah," Carlisle said and then went to spread the icing the top part of the cake half only. Within a few seconds there was a perfectly flat, even layer of icing on top of the cake half only a ¼ inch thick. I bet if I got out a ruler to measure it, it would be exactly a ¼ inch thick. Actually, If I got my hands on a ruler, I'd probably want it to rap it over Edward's knuckles for stealing my M&Ms. Maybe I shouldn't do that…

For the next few minutes, I spent time with my other parents. Carlisle and I managed to, somehow, get the other half of the cake on top and ice the entire thing while not making it a recreation of the leaning tower of Pisa. As soon as we were done with that, Esme gently placed the layer of fondant icing on top of our little creation. I decided to let Carlisle cut the edge of the icing. I didn't want to play with knives and accidentally end up cutting myself.

As Esme smoothed out the icing over the cake, making it look absolutely perfect, Carlisle sat down at one of the barstools and started to play with the excess icing. Well, maybe play isn't the best word. It was more like mold piece of the excess icing into things like leaves, flowers, and what looked like a feather. I just watched, wide-eyed I'm sure.

Carlisle looked up at me as he worked on another leaf. "Do you want to try, Bella?" he asked. I shook my head.

"I'll just get my hands all sticky and end up with a glump of icing," I informed him truthfully. I slumped against the counter. Carlisle patted the barstool next to him, indicating I should join him and play with the icing too.

I went over and sat down. "We could make holly to go on top of the cake as a decoration. I'll make the leaves, if you like, and you can make the berries," he suggested. It would be pretty. I could even play with the icing markers and I could definitely handle making small balls of icing to make berries.

"Holly?" I asked him. That seemed a little Christmasy to me. Not that I minded since I liked Christmas but I'm sure I'd hear it from Lauren.

"Or we can make something else," he said. He got a look from Esme but it was too quick for me to catch it. "Or we can just leave it with the ribbons, if you prefer" Carlisle told me.

"No, holly is fine," I said, reaching for the markers. "It just seems a bit Christmasy is all," I mentioned and I grabbed a small bit of the icing. It was really sticky but I could still mush it up into a ball.

"Perhaps it is," Carlisle mused. He looked thoughtful as he made another leaf and then handed it to me to color. I looked at the perfectly formed little creation in front of me and immediately got nervous. I didn't want to put the green marker to the pretty little thing out of fear of totally destroying it.

"Maybe you should color them, Carlisle," I whispered.

"You won't destroy it," he said gently. I shook my head. "I can make many more, Bella. Just try," he told me.

Hesitantly, I picked up the marker and softly, carefully, I colored in the holly leaf. I tried to touch the leaf as little as possible as I colored it in. In a matter of minutes, we had one very green leaf. Carlisle and Esme both smiled proudly at me. Great, I colored in a leaf and my vampire parents were proud. This was kind of sad.

As I started to babble with Esme and Carlisle, while coloring in the berries as well, I heard the kitchen door open. I knew who ever it was had made the noise on purpose and I could think of only two that would do that…neither one of whom I wanted to talk to right now.

"Bella?" I heard a very soft bell like voice ask me. Against my better judgment, I turned around to see the pixie herself with a shopping bag. She was looking down at her feet, looking so completely upset, it took everything in me not to comfort her. All I had to think about was my favorite pair of pajama bottoms and that helped a lot. Alice held out the bag to me.

"I'm sorry, Bella," she said. That did it. She was too adorable to stay mad at.

"Why, Alice? Why did you have to use my pajamas? Why couldn't you use the scraps from your fabric stash?" I asked sadly. She ran over to me, dropping the bag in one motion and hugging me tight. I automatically hugged her back.

"I'm sorry," she repeated quietly. It didn't matter. She was forgiven probably around the time Rose handed me the note and I found out it was Edward that raided my chocolate supply. I knew my Pajama bottoms days were numbered anyway with Alice supplementing my wardrobe every so often but I thought my M&Ms were safe from thieving vampires!

"I got you a new pair. Just like your old ones," Alice mumbled to me. I managed to weakly smile.

"Thanks, Alice," I told her. And with that, she sat down next to me and smiled back.

"Can I stay to watch the cake decorating?" she asked, now mostly back to the Alice we all know and love.

"After you hand over all your credit cards," Carlisle told her, trying to hide a smile and failing at it.

Alice sighed and did as requested. She had four credit cards, two platinums, one with a picture of a rainbow and sunshine on it, and a black credit card. All four were slowly handed over to Carlisle. Once he took them and quickly hid them, Alice looked back at me, "I really am sorry, Bella."

"I know," I told her as I went back to holly berry decorating.

"So you forgive me?" she asked hopefully.

"Of course! I can't stay mad at you for long. You know that," I told her. I heard a squeal of delight and her arms wrapped back around me again.

"Thanks, Bella," Alice told me. And with that, we all went back to our focus on cake decorating 101. I know Lauren would comment on the holly on the cake but I didn't care. It would at least look pretty and I liked it. Right now, that was all I cared about…well, that and getting to spend time with my vampire family again.

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**Author's Note:** Poor Alice! Her credit cards! What will she do? Is Carlisle even thinking of the consequences here? I mean Alice without shopping is like....not possible. I don't even want to think about it. It's too horrible. Poor Jasper. Is Carlisle even thinking about the effects this will have on Jasper? Jasper is innocent in this.....


	14. Cum tacent, clamant

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** I currently have a very lovely pair of boots that look kinda like they have the Cullen crest on them that I plan on wearing with my own heraldic 16th c dress because that would just be freakin' cool but that's about it. Basically, these guys aren't mine.

**Summary:** Bella has to make three cakes for a cakewalk at the school fund raising fair and Esme wants to help! Family Fluff ensues!

**Author's Note:** I guess y'all really liked poor Bella getting mad at our darlin' Edward and pretty little Alice. Don't worry, Edward will learn, in this chapter, that you never mess with a human's chocolate supply. …I should go get some of those chocolate sticks before I start this chapter. You know, for ummm…writing research purposes and all….

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Chapter 14

The white cake was finished. It sat on the pink glass cake plate in white cake perfection. Carlisle helped place the ribbons on once Esme had smoothed out the icing on top of the cake. Alice and I placed the little red berries and holly leaves on top. The cake really did look like a Christmas present but I didn't care. It was pretty.

"So, now we get to do the other two, right Bella?" Alice asked back to her normal bouncy self. I wondered what would happen if she was human and had one of those gigantic pixie sticks. I mentally shuddered at the thought; I don't think even Emmett could cause the amount of destruction that a human Alice on a sugar high could. That alone might give me nightmares tonight.

"Yeah," I told her, my voice sounding more despondent than I really wanted it to. It wasn't that I didn't like spending time with my vampire family – it wasn't that at all- it was that I was cake-baking outed and didn't want to see another cake for at least a month after this was all over. Luckily, Alice ignored me.

"Hmm," she mused as she looked over the two cakes still the cake pans with the blue plastic wrap over them. "Esme?" Alice asked, turning towards her.

"Yes, dear?" she asked as she finished cleaning up leaving nothing but a clean mixing bowl, and the cake on the counter.

"I think we need to make a run to the store for long cake plates for these two," Alice said. I groaned and put my head on the counter. I loved Alice but she was a total tempest when it came to shopping and I was only human. Carlisle, I think, patted me on the back. I could practically feel him trying hard not to laugh.

Esme gently brushed back my hair from my face and I weakly looked up at her. She smiled. "Don't worry, only Alice and I will go, sweetheart," she told me. That immediately made me feel better even with Alice's halfhearted scowl.

"Thanks, Esme," I told her truthfully.

Alice stopped scowling for a second and her eyes looked distant. All eyes turned to her and Esme immediately held her smallest daughter. "Alice?" she called to her after a couple of seconds. Alice shook her head in response and returned to scowling.

"Will you please go stop my brother from doing anything stupid while we go shopping?" Alice asked me. She must have had a vision of Edward. I was still mad at him but I wasn't so mad at him that I wouldn't stop him from getting himself hurt, ever. I hopped off the barstool.

"Sure," I shrugged. Both Alice and Esme hugged me before going out to the Volvo with Esme driving. I turned to Carlisle before they made it out to the car. "You'll help with the cakes when they get back, right?" I asked him. I really wanted to spend some more time with my other dad.

"If you would like," he said, a smile on his face. I wasn't sure if that meant he'd help because I asked or he'd help because he wanted to. I looked down at my shoes, knowing I was blushing.

"You don't have to," I whispered. I felt a strong hand on my shoulder and felt him kiss the top of my head.

"I'll help, Bella," he told me, his voice full of sincerity. When I looked up at him, he was still smiling. "Go. See what Edward is up to," he told me, a gentle laugh in his voice. I walked as quickly as I could, trying very hard not to trip over my own two feet and managed to only stumble up the two flights of stairs.

I reached his bedroom door and knocked gently. I knew he'd know it was me from the stumbling up the stairs and the smell, probably, but still, I wanted to be polite and not just barge in…even if it was just Edward's room. I didn't get an answer and immediately got worried. I cracked the door just a little bit and peeked in. I could see him, sitting on the edge of his black leather couch, his head in his hands. It looked like he was crying.

"Edward?" I whispered to him, gently pushing the door closed behind me before I moved towards him. He was in front of me before I could even really take a step forward. He looked down at me, his face so full of sadness that I knew he had been crying. He may not be able to produce tears but there was no other way to explain the look on his face. Every bit of anger I still had towards him washed away just by looking at him. Instinctively, I hugged him as tight as I could, placing my head beneath his chin.

"I'm so sorry, Bella," he said, his velvety voice croaked out. It really did sound like he had been crying. I held on to him, now upset with myself for getting Edward so depressed. I could feel the tears in my eyes starting to form. I didn't want to see my Edward like this.

"I'll make it up to, Bella. Just tell me and it's yours," he pleaded with me. Gently he pulled back away from me and lifted my head so he could see my face. Damn. I could feel one of my tears fall and roll down my cheek. Edward caught it on his finger, his eyes looking beyond pained. "Please, Bella, don't cry," he whispered. I had to look away from him. It was just hurt too much to see him like this. I wrapped my arms back around him and he held me tight against his chest.

"Don't mess with my chocolate supply ever again," I mumbled into his shirt. A few more tears fell down my face.

"I think I can manage that," he whispered into my hair softly. For the next few minutes, we just stood there, holding each other. In a way, I never wanted it to end because I loved being in Edward's arms but I still wanted to know what possessed him to touch my M&Ms and make sure that no creatures, human or mythological, should ever mess with a chocolate supply. I started to pull away and looked up at him. He smiled down at me though it still didn't meet his eyes.

"Why did you do it, Edward?" I asked. He looked crestfallen when I asked and I had to look away. Edward stepped back a step further and looked at me. I knew he was wishing, once again, that he could hear my thoughts so he'd know how to answer. He was not getting out of this that easily.

"They were the perfect size and shape for the hackeysacks," he told me matter of factly. Suddenly, I felt his finger beneath my chin as he pulled my face up to look at him. "I truly am sorry, Love. I will never touch your M&Ms again," he said smiling at bit. I think he was trying to dazzle me but his eyes still had too much pain in them to really be very effective. Although, even with that, I still had to look away. I bit my lip before I answered him.

"Edward," I started. I sighed, how do explain to a vampire that there were well…rules in human world you just had to follow. I pointed to his couch for him to sit down. He did so automatically and opened his arms for me to join him. It killed me but I had to ignore him for at least a minute to get out what I had to say so I stood before him instead, just out of his reach, still thinking before looking at him.

"There are a few rules in the human world that you obviously aren't aware of," I told him. He looked very amused by this and leaned back, looking every bit of a Greek god.

"Really?" he asked. I nodded in response. "Well, then, by all means, Love. What are these rules?" he questioned amused now, the pain almost gone from his eyes.

"Well, there really is only one you seem to be unaware of today," I started. He smirked. I glared. That forced the smile from his face quickly and he sat back up at the edge of his couch, watching me. Slowly, he extended his hand. "Never ever mess with a human's chocolate supply," I told him not taking his hand. That nearly killed me but he had to understand the gravity of this situation.

Edward looked confused as his golden eyes searched my brown ones. He sat there silently for about a minute while I stood in front of him. "I don't understand, Love," he whispered. I couldn't take the sadness in his voice and sat down next to him. He immediately took my hand into his own, kissing the top of mine.

"Taking my chocolate supply and using it for the hackeysacks would be like taking a mountain lion from you and making it into a mat for the front door without letting you drain it first," I tried to explain to him. His eyes held a bunch of emotions at once. The pain was still there but so was confusion and a bit of disgust. You'd think he'd get over the whole Bella-is-taking-this-so-calmly thing. I know he didn't like it when I discussed his diet but how else do I explain it to him?

Finally, a smile crept on to his face. "I don't think a mountain lion would make a good rug, Bella," he told me, gently squeezing my hand. I grumbled at that. He wasn't getting the point at all. Or at least he was trying not to get the point.

"Edward, this is not a joke. You don't mess with chocolate supplies. I was grounded for a week when I was seven because I took all of Renee's Hershey nuggets to make a house for a project at school," I huffed. I remembered Renee's face when she saw me finishing up the odd little house for my project. We didn't have sugar cubes and the house that I was trying to build was supposed to be bricks anyway. In my searches, I found Renee's chocolate stash that she secretly kept even though she was on a diet at the time. Using the secret stash and her being on a diet would have meant death for anyone other than me. I just got grounded.

"What was the project?" Edward asked. That just caused me to get angry again. I stood up and glared down at my perfect angel of a boyfriend. He looked shocked at my sudden departure from his side.

"You aren't taking this seriously!" I accused him, pointing my finger at him again. The pain in his eyes came back with full force as he stood up and gently kissed the hand that was in front of him.

"I'm sorry, Love," he whispered, looking up at me through his eyelashes before standing full height. Edward reached for me and pulled me into his arms as I felt those tears start to fall again. "I will never touch the chocolate again, love. I will buy you as much chocolate as you want. Please, don't cry," his voice again pleaded with me as he held me close to his chest.

My tears slowed and Edward moved me so he could look at my face. "Please, love?" he begged of me. I knew it wasn't just to stop crying but for me to forgive him as well. I couldn't stay mad at him. All I could do is look into his eyes and feel totally responsible for the pain in them.

"Forgiven," I whispered as I still looked up at him. My arms somehow ended up around his neck and we were now seated back on his sofa, with me in his lap. I wasn't sure when or how that happened. A small smile played at his lips before he started to graze my jaw line with his nose, just barely touching me.

"Are you sure?" he whispered into my ear, followed by a kiss near my earlobe. He started to work his way down towards the corner of my mouth.

"Yes, forgiven," I managed to breath out as my hands started to move to his hair. I could feel him smile against my jaw. He moved to my lips and I could just feel his cold ones against mine.

"There you two are!" I heard someone say. I knew that voice and it annoyed me right now.

"Alice," Edward lightly growled as he continued to kiss me.

"Don't you start with me, Edward. Bella needs to finish those cakes for tomorrow and we just came back with the cake plates," Alice said. I think I could see her hands on her hips from the corner of my eyes. I pouted when Edward pulled away this time.

"Besides, isn't that the entire reason you got the bed?" Alice asked before turning around. Edward growled after his sister. I could hear her through the door. "If you don't have her down in one minute," I heard Alice start to warn Edward. I couldn't hear the rest of the threat but I knew there was one because his face paled slightly.

Gently, Edward picked me up and placed me back on my feet. I didn't like this at all. "Why does she do that?" I pouted. Edward gave me my favorite crooked smile of his. "Because she's Alice and she blames me for getting you upset with her earlier," he told me.

"So why does she have to take it out on me too?" I demanded. He just laughed and kissed my forehead before taking my hand.

"Come on, Love. Let's finish with those cakes of yours and then she might stop bothering us," he said teasingly as he led me to the staircase. One could hope, right?

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**Author's Note:** Okay, admit it. Who cried? :-p


	15. Leo ex cattos?

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** I currently own the cutest black dress with bright red roses. Alice would be so proud. But, I don't own Alice or any of the Cullens 'cause I don't own Twilight.

**Summary:** Bella needs to make three cakes for a Cakewalk at the Forks High School fair. Esme helps and family fluff ensues!

**Author's Note:** Wow! Y'all really liked the last chapter! I'm going to try to add a bit more Carlisle into this one, as requested. I have a feeling he actually has human memories of chocolate. ::giggles:: Personally, I'd like to thank the ladies down in the Starbucks on the first floor of my office building for letting me conduct my research but getting a yummy hot chocolate with whipped cream on top, grande. It helped in the inspiration for this chapter.

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Chapter 15 (ummm…wasn't this only supposed to be two?)

Edward and I headed downstairs towards the kitchen. Jasper was sitting in one of the recliners in the living room reading a book. I wasn't sure which one but he did look up slightly as we passed by and smiled at us. I have no idea where Emmett and Rose were but I just hoped my truck was safe. After yesterday, I was still worried about Rose being anywhere near my truck. I didn't want it "improved".

In the kitchen, Alice was happily bouncing from the island towards the doorway. She grabbed my hand and pulled me away from Edward, causing Carlisle to chuckle lightly. I guess Edward must have growled at her and I couldn't hear it because Alice shot him a look and then stuck her tongue out at him. "Alice," Carlisle warned. She ignored him.

Esme wrapped her arm around me. I saw the two longer cakes, the yellow and the chocolate, were both lying on two glass cake plates. At least I think they were glass; they could have been crystal knowing Esme and Alice. Either way, I was hesitant to touch them because I knew they were worth more than pretty much anything I owned.

"So, do we make more icing next?" Alice asked in her usual chipper voice. I shook my head.

"No," I said and watched a couple of the assembled vampires faces fall. What was with them and making cakes? "Well, we could," I clarified and that seemed to make everyone happy. I swear I heard Jasper laughing in the other room. "But we don't have any cocoa powder to make chocolate icing for the yellow cake," I said. Edward winced at the word "chocolate". I think I've scared my vampire boyfriend for the rest of his existence!

"Weren't we going to use the icing from the store?" Esme asked me. I nodded in response. She left my side and went to the cupboard where the chocolate icing was but the vanilla had disappeared. Esme looked at the cupboard thoughtfully as she picked up the can of chocolate icing and brought it over. "I know we bought the vanilla icing as well," she said softly as she thought.

I bit my bottom lip and then realized two things. One of those things was the very simple fact that Emmett had disappeared. Granted, Rose wasn't around either but Emmett missing and the icing missing seemed to be connected. Then again, Jasper did look content and I did hear him laughing from the other room earlier. I knew he was more strategy minded than his burly brother but he could just as easily taken the icing for some Vampire Conspiracy plot. I doubted it was any of the vampires present although they could just as easily been in on the plot as well.

"We can just make more, right?" Alice finally perked up. She began to pull out the assembled ingredients and a mixing bowl.

"I guess…," I said, curious as to what anyone else in the house would want with a can of icing. About then, I saw Edward take a step closer and quickly look in the direction of the living room. He looked confused for a moment and then perturbed before looking at Alice. Alice just grinned and shrugged her shoulders. I was glad for once I wasn't the only one who didn't understand the silent conversation.

"Edward? What's wrong?" Esme asked her son, looking between him and her daughter.

Alice pretended to look innocent as she batted her eyelashes at her mother. "Nothing is wrong, Esme," Alice told her. Edward said something too low for me to hear. Carlisle shook his head at whatever Edward stated and looked like he was trying again not to laugh.

"If you want, go find them," Carlisle told Edward. Alice giggled at them and went about making icing as I observed to make sure she got the proportions right. Considering this is the third time I've had help to make icing in the past twenty four hours, I'm not surprised that everyone in the house now knows how to make icing. Not that it's hard to begin with but it's not like they've had much reason to make cakes and icing before.

Edward ran off before I could really blink. I'm not sure what was going on but I was afraid to ask at the same time. Something told me I really didn't want to know what became of my other can of vanilla icing and that was exactly the reason why Edward ran off. I doubt he'd be able to rescue it from whoever had their hands on it. But then again, my curiosity as to what a vampire might do with icing was slowly getting the better of me.

Alice had whipped up the icing in a couple of minutes. Esme handed each of knifes, even Carlisle, so we could ice both the cakes and get this over with. I opened up the can of chocolate icing to put that on the yellow cake. Alice looked at me. "Shouldn't chocolate go with chocolate?" she asked.

"You could," I admitted. "But I always liked vanilla icing with chocolate cake and chocolate icing with yellow cake," I told her. I shrugged and said "It just tastes better." Immediately, I blushed realizing that vampires wouldn't know the difference. We all iced the two cakes, at human speed since I was involved.

"We use to put vanilla extract in chocolate in London," Carlisle informed Alice. Both Alice and I looked at him.

"You remember eating chocolate?" Alice asked, amazed. Of course, remembering anything human was amazing to her since she couldn't remember it herself. She liked to hold that over my head when she wanted to do something with me that I didn't want to do, like yesterday's make over.

Carlisle nodded and smiled at me. I blushed again and looked down at the half iced cake. "It wasn't eating it in those days. We had what I guess today would be considered hot chocolate," he told us.

"You didn't have any chocolate bars?" I asked. It was hard to think of chocolate not in a solid form of some sort.

"No," he mused and looked to be thinking back. "I suppose some of the nobility might have had something akin to chocolate cake," he chuckled causing me to blush again. I'm not sure if the other two blushes really went away. "But everyone else had chocolate at the coffee houses or kept a small amount of the cocoa bean at home to grind up if someone was ill," he said.

I know they didn't exactly have Starbucks back then but the idea of the painting of London upstairs in his office covered with small green double tailed mermaids couldn't help but enter my mind. Coffee houses in London were probably more like pubs and less like the wifi hang outs they are today. I'm really glad that Edward can't read my mind because I would not want to have to explain that mental image.

The idea of chocolate being medicinal made sense. After all, it was very necessary for most humans overall happiness. "You had to make your own hot chocolate from scratch when you were sick?" I couldn't help but ask. I then remembered he probably didn't even remember it that much.

"I don't recall doing such a thing but I do remember having hot chocolate at home and we didn't keep such things in the powder form," he chuckled. I was definitely up to beet level red and glad the cakes were finally iced.

Alice inspected the two cakes and then looked to the pretty third one. "Can't we make these pretty too?" she asked. I was glad for the change of subject.

"I think they look fine," Esme told her.

"No they don't! That one is all decorated and these two are just blah," Alice informed everyone. I looked down, trying to think of some way I could decorate them because I knew if Alice thought they were plain, Lauren was bound to say something.

"Alice," Carlisle warned. He gently placed a hand on my shoulder, thinking I was upset by Alice's comments I guess.

"No, Carlisle. It's fine, really," I said looking up. "I was just wondering if anyone took the sprinkles with the other can of icing," I told him truthfully. He looked to the cupboard where the icing had been as Esme opened it. The blue sugar sprinkles and the multi colored ones were still there. Turning, Esme held both in her hands and smiled.

"Which one should go on which?" she asked me.

"The blue on the vanilla?" I more asked than stated. Alice closed her eyes – getting an exasperated sigh from Carlisle- and re opened them a couple of seconds later.

"Yes, the blue on this one," she said pointing to the chocolate cake with the vanilla icing. "The rainbow ones on the other."

The half of the cake I poured sprinkles on looked haphazard in comparison to the one Esme did or the other half of my cake which Carlisle did. If it had just been in comparison to Carlisle's half of the cake, I could have passed it off as his being a surgeon but it clearly wasn't. I'm the human and thereby imperfect.

I didn't have a whole lot of time to dwell on that fact because even I could hear Jasper laughing at something. I turned my head in the direction of the living room wondering what was going on. Carlisle put his hand back on my shoulder. "Wait here," he told me sternly.

A good part of me really wanted to obey him but another part of me was just too curious. Esme followed Carlisle out of the kitchen, looking very worried. Alice gently took my hand and grinned. "This will be fun!" she told me as she pulled me towards the living room. Those words made me want to listen to Carlisle and stay in the safety of the kitchen but Alice is a lot stronger than I am.

As we walked into the living room, Jasper, Esme, and Carlisle were already lined up along the picture window that faced the river out back. Carlisle turned around and gave a warning glance to Alice since I was clearly under her control.

"Everything will be fine," Alice said cheerfully, still holding my hand as we walked to see what Jasper found so funny while Esme and Carlisle clearly didn't.

I heard Esme say "Should we stop them?" as I approached the window and saw Edward fighting with Emmett. This was nothing new since I'd seen them fight just yesterday in the front lawn. What was new was that about twenty feet away from the fight were a bunch of cats. House cats. It was only four of them but they all seemed to be gathered around something central on the ground that I couldn't make out from here. I was suddenly very worried. I knew that my vampires tended to go for things like mountain lions and grizzly bears so they wouldn't go for something so small has a 10 or 15 pound house cat, right? They had to be too small to be much good for anything. It would be like one M&M rather than an entire chocolate bar….

Alice started giggling along with Jasper's laughing. The sound of that distracted me from Emmett and Edward's fight for a few seconds. They sounded like they were five or six octaves from each other but matched in a perfect melody. It was a nice sound and a good distraction from the tree falling away from the house and into the river. Esme's gasp brought me back to the situation unfolding.

Rosalie appeared and went up to Carlisle. "I tried to stop them, Dad," she told him, sadness coloring her tone. She looked at me and she seemed to put her guard back up for lack of a better description. "They are both being ridiculous," she scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. I saw her and noticed that slight hint of a glare in my direction. In a strange way, that made me feel better; after all, that was the Rosalie I knew. The one that still didn't like me and would find a way to blame me for anything. It was comforting in an odd way.

As another tree started to get banged up thanks to the boys wresting match that the house cats had enough sense to keep away from but just barely, Carlisle sighed. "I'll go stop them," he told both Esme and Rose.

He didn't really even bother with walking to the backdoor but just suddenly appeared about three feet away from Edward and Emmett's stranglehold on each other. "Boys! That is enough!" he shouted at the pair. Immediately, the fighting stopped. I couldn't hear the discussion through the glass but I could make out some of the words from reading their lips. I could have swore I saw Emmett say "hunting" but I wasn't sure. All I did know is what ever they were telling Carlisle, Jasper found it priceless.

"They…," he started to gasp in-between laughing. "He thought…" and more laughter.

Alice simply smiled and patted her husband on the back. "Well, at least we know what happened to the icing," she said with a giggle. Esme sighed at that.

"I'm sorry, Bella," Esme told me. "Emmett shouldn't have taken it," she told me. Oh, so Emmett did steal my icing. I couldn't think of why until I saw those four house cats again in the Cullen's yard. They were still centrally located around something. It was then that I realized they were all _eating _my icing. That's why the cats, which would normally stay away from a house full of vampires, were in the back yard. But why would Emmett give the icing to the cats?

I thought about that for maybe a second when I remember I had seen him say the word "hunting". My face paled as I put it together. Emmett was using my icing as bait! He didn't get what he expected of course and Edward had probably got upset with him because he took the icing and set the trap so close to the house with me inside. I was just curious now as to what the heck he did expect to catch and why he didn't just go hunt like he normally would.

As I watched the scene unfold outside, I think I heard Emmett shout back at Carlisle something like "but it worked on TV! Bears love that stuff!" Edward growled at his brother, starting another argument. This one was quickly over with though because Carlisle ordered him inside. I watched the cats quickly abandon the icing can as Edward blurred by them.

Within another half second, Edward's arms were around me. I easily fell back against him and he kissed my forehead. I think Jasper's laughter got louder about then but it was hard to tell because he wasn't really stopping. "Let's get you home," he whispered to me. I knew it was getting late and that Charlie was probably expecting me but I didn't really want to go. The only thing that made me leave really were thoughts of burnt dinners and Charlie in the kitchen.

"Bye Esme! Bye guys," I shouted to everyone as Edward pulled me towards the Volvo.

Esme managed to catch up and give me a quick hug. "We'll see you at the fair tomorrow, dear" she told me. I nodded and got into the shiny silver car, hoping that tomorrow wouldn't be as bad as I imagined it might be. After all, Lauren was bound to say something about me and my cake making skills and that was something I didn't want to deal with.

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**Author's Note: **This one felt like it took forever to write! I knew what I wanted to do but I kept getting distracted today. I think it had something to do with the weather or the fact it was Monday. Take your pick.


	16. Ecce! Latine!

CaKeWaLk

It's like a story bout Bella n stuffs…

So Like bella wok up and Emmet wuz bein mean and she cried. An Eddie was thur cuz he came threw the window. He puts his arms around her waste.

"Bella, babe, don't cry!"

"But Emmet is a big meannie!"

"Am not! U so r!"

"Emmet! Shut up!"

"Wutevah Eddie!"

And so like Edward and Emmet fight and like they break stuff. And Bella gets hurts. So Edward is even more mad. And Jasper goes all crazie.

…and like…happy April fools!!!!

I promise, I'm working on the real chapter. I just had to do this because I could. It encompasses nearly everything that makes me cringe when I'm reading although I know I do some of the above too. Accidentally, of course. ;-)


	17. Facta, non verba

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** I currently own the cutest black dress with bright red roses. Alice would be so proud. But, I don't own Alice or any of the Cullens 'cause I don't own Twilight.

**Summary:** Bella needs to make three cakes for a Cakewalk at the Forks High School fair. Esme helps and family fluff ensues!

**Author's Note: **Sorry about the earlier chapter. I couldn't help myself!

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Chapter 16 (really!)

I stood just outside the entrance to gym, in the rain, looking up at the currently imposing building. Well, to be honest, it was one of my least favorite buildings. Today, if I had a choice between Trig or going into the Gym to help finish up with the decorating for the school fair in an hour, I'd choose Trig. I sighed, knowing I had no choice but to go in and help out. It wouldn't be so bad, honestly, if it weren't for the fact it was in the Gym, I'll probably do something clumsy, and have Lauren laugh at me.

I slowly started to trudge through the puddles to the Gym when I suddenly noticed a shadow over me and a lack of wet stuff falling on my head. I looked up and saw a pretty umbrella, yellow, with ladybugs on it. It was so bright and cheerful I knew it could only belong to one person. "Hi, Alice," I said without a hint of a smile to my face. I looked back down at my shoes.

"Hi, Bella! Aren't you the least bit excited about this fair?" she asked me in her normal bell like voice. I looked to her and she simply smiled and squeezed my arm gently. "Come on, Bella! I know you'll love it!" she said. Then she whispered, "Don't make me call Jasper and have him come to forcefully cheer you up."

"I'll try, Alice," I told her. I really wanted to have fun. I knew Edward was most likely in there already along with Angela and Ben but so were Lauren and Jessica. Spending an extra few hours within earshot of both of them wasn't going to help my mood much.

Alice skipped her way slowly into the gym, twirling around me and holding the bright yellow umbrella over my head the same time. It was hard not to smile seeing as how much fun Alice was having in the rain. We both got in and shook our raincoats at the door before putting them inside the lockers in the girls' room.

"That's better!" Alice exclaimed when she turned to me before we both headed into the gym. I smiled a bit more. "See? Now let's go have some fun!" she giggled before leading me out into the main part of the gym.

My eyes widened when I saw the gymnasium. Ladders were up as some of the guys were still stringing lights and streamers across the ceiling. On the far wall was a rock climbing wall that I really didn't remember anyone mentioning being here. There was also a set up for the Gladiator style fighting which a couple of people were already trying out. They looked like they were fighting with giant q-tips.

I kept looking around while Alice giggled at me. I felt a pair of familiar cold lips kiss my forehead. "There you two are," Edward mused before taking me away, gently, from Alice. She quickly ran off, at a human-ish pace to go help out with something on the far side of the gym.

"You did all of this?" I asked, amazed at the mini-moon bounce I also saw along with some games. Then my eyes fell upon the 12 small pieces of carpet with a number on each of them in a perfect little circle. The cakewalk was all set up along with the table showing off my and Angela's cakes. The white cake with the holly berries was in the center, like it was on display and I inwardly cringed when I saw Lauren and Jessica near it, talking.

"I only helped to direct the set up of the climbing wall and a couple of streamers. Most of the rest was conducted by a professional company," Edward explained. I looked up at him. I wondered who had gotten a professional company to come in since we didn't exactly have enough money to do such a thing, hence the fund raiser for the senior class trip. It didn't take me long to figure out who did have enough money to call in a professional company and I stopped walking towards the cakewalk, Edward still at my side.

"You didn't," I started but Edward put a finger to my lips. I pouted since he wouldn't let me finished.

"Of course not, Bella," he told me, gently guiding me towards the cakes. "Carlisle did," he smiled his crooked grin, trying to dazzle me.

"Edward!" I said a little too loud as a few of the other students looked at us. He just smiled at me. "You shouldn't have done anything like that," I mumbled. I could feel the blush creeping up in my face since I was embarrassed slightly by my outburst.

"As I said, I didn't. Carlisle did," he re-iterated teasingly. I scowled at that.

"Don't worry, Love," Edward whispered in my ear as he drew his arm around my waist. "He simply called in a favor," he told me.

"Was it with the MasterCard or the Visa?" I grumbled back. Wasn't this supposed to me the class fundraiser? Weren't we do everything ourselves? Of course, I saw a few parents here too helping but they were more observing than actually putting this altogether. I thought the point of this was for us to do something together just for our class by ourselves.

"Neither, it truly was a favor and nothing more," Edward said as we reached the table. I could already hear Lauren whispering to Jessica although I couldn't understand what she was saying. Edward's arm tightened a bit around my waist. He tried hard to disguise his soft growl as a cough but I knew better. Lauren just glared at him and Jessica looked like she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"Oh, Bella! The cake is so pretty!" Angela exclaimed as she walked over. Blushing I mumbled a thanks. Lauren's eyes glistened at this as she put on her false smile but before she could say anything, Mr. Greene stood up on a small platform in-between the rock wall and the gladiator fight.

"We have five minutes until the fair will begin. Seniors, if you would man your booths please," he asked. Edward kissed me quickly before going over to the games section of the gym to watch his throwing game. Angela sat down at the table we had the cakes on. Thankfully, both Jessica and Lauren walked away for now. I didn't want to hear anything she had to say, especially without Edward right next to me. Taking a chair near Angela, I gave her a tentative smile.

"Your cakes look great!" I told her truthfully. She smiled back and looked down.

"Thanks, my mom helped me," she told me before looking back up. "But yours! That white one looks professional, Bella. Maybe you should go into the cake making business," Angela mused to me. I blushed even redder in response.

"Well, Edward's parents helped me," I told her, playing with the hem of my shirt.

"Wow! That was really nice of them," she stated and I nodded in response. "Does Mrs. Cullen do a lot of cooking?" she asked.

I tried not to giggle at that and failed. The idea of Esme doing a lot of cooking was funny. She didn't cook at all until I came into the picture! Now, she buys up cookbooks and watches food network to figure out what to feed me when I come over on the weekends. I really felt bad about it because I didn't want Esme to have to go through all that trouble when it really truly was just for me and not a single other soul in the house could eat it. Of course, I couldn't explain all that to Angela.

"She's taking up baking as her latest hobby," I said truthfully.

Angela and I talked for a couple of more minutes before the doors opened and people started to come in. We basically sold tickets for a dollar a piece and told people to come back on the half hour to play. According to Angela, Mr. Greene would announce for us when it was time to come back.

After about ten minutes, Angela kept looking around at all the amusements we had in the gym. I smiled at her. "I can handle this if you wanted to look around," I told her.

"Are you sure?" Angela asked me, her eyes uncertain as she glanced at our small money box and the huge roll of tickets.

"Sure, sure," I told her offhandedly as I took someone else's money and handed them a ticket for the cakewalk. We decided the fairest way to do this really was to give everyone a ticket, take their tickets back when it was time for the game to start, and then randomly pick a number from a box that corresponded to the numbers on the rugs. Whoever was on that rug would get to pick a cake.

"Okay, but I'll be back in another fifteen minutes to help out with the actual game and then you can walk around after that if you want," Angela said worriedly.

I smiled up at her. "That sounds great, Angela," I told her. Quickly, she hurried off to take a look around at everything set up in the gym. I just sat there, collecting money and handing out tickets until I noticed a rather large white hand holding out a dollar bill. I looked up at him. "Emmett, you…don't even like cake," I told him carefully. I didn't want anyone to get too suspicious by what I said and not liking cake was at least somewhat normal.

"Aww, come on, Bella," he grinned at me. I sighed and took his dollar, handing him a ticket. It wasn't exactly like this would hurt anything, although I was curious as to why he was here. I could see Rose out of the corner of my eye with her arms crossed over her chest, in boredom. Weren't they supposed to be pretending to be at college?

I didn't get a chance to ask them because right about then, the very epitome of evil came over and smiled false sweetness to both me and Emmett. He just grinned like normal. "Are you here on Spring Break this week?" Lauren asked Emmett. I swear I saw Rose twitch out of the corner of my eye.

"Umm, yeah, visiting the family and all," Emmett told her. I felt my heart go a bit mushy when he looked right at me as he said "family". I was still happy that at least Emmett thought of me that way. I knew Alice did too but Alice was well…Alice. Rose didn't even glare or huff when he said it either. Indifferent was a step up from loathing my very presence I guess. Of course, indifferent from Rose felt like hugs and kisses compared to the false sweetness rolling off of Lauren's tongue. I'd gladly take Rose any day over Lauren or Jessica anymore. At least Rose I understood a bit.

"Oh, how sweet! And helping out your brother's little girlfriend," Lauren batted her eyelashes. Rose stiffened and held her breath but I don't think Lauren noticed. Emmett just looked confused by Lauren's behavior.

"All the money goes to the class trip, right?" he asked, looking to me.

"Yeah, Emmett it…" I started but Lauren cut me off. I looked down at my hands as she spoke, dejected.

"Oh yes, I guess that's why Bella bought that pretty cake. We are going to Vancouver this year for a couple of days to go see the city," Lauren stated. I didn't look up but I could see Rose move next to Emmett. Or, rather, I saw a pretty blue silk skirt move next to the blue jeans and knew they belonged to Rosalie and Emmett respectively.

"Oh, she didn't buy that," Emmett said, sounding proud? I think that was what his tone sounded like. "She made all three of the cakes. She even helped me make one at home," he grinned. Lauren was quiet for all of a second.

"You don't really think I believe that klutz for brains over there really made any of those cakes, do you?" Lauren spluttered out. I bit my bottom lip and looked up just in time to see Rose glare down…at Lauren.

"What did you say?" Rose asked icily.

I noticed Emmett looking nervously at Rose and then to me. His face fell a bit and he knelt in front of the table, offering me a small grin. "Don't worry about her, lil sis," he whispered to me while Lauren stammered a bit.

"You must have seen her walk!" Lauren stated to Rose defensively now. "I've seen people with canes that have less problems!"

A small group of people had started to gather around the cakewalk table. Emmett moved slightly so he was angled in such a way he could watch Rose and Lauren but also keep me in his eye sight. I was up to beet red by Lauren's accusations. I knew it was true, I really was a klutz but the way she said and the fact _she_ said it made it insulting.

"Leave," Rose ordered. Her voice was low and her eyes narrowed. I really had never seen her that mad before. Why was she upset when all Lauren was doing was insulting me? Was it because Esme helped with the cakes and Rosalie didn't want anyone insulting something her family worked on?

"Why?" Lauren huffed, crossing her arms. "It's my class fund raiser and isn't like you had to come," she told Rose. I cringed. You just didn't speak that way to Rosalie if you expected to live to see graduation.

"You dare to insult Bella, accuse Emmett of lying, and now refuse to leave us alone?" Rose asked Lauren. I could practically hear the venom in her voice and I was surprised Emmett wasn't trying to stop her like he normally does when Rosalie gets upset with me.

"You pathetic little girl," Rose started as she pointed once perfectly manicured nail at Lauren, walking towards her. Lauren tried not to budge and failed. I stifled a giggle at the look on Lauren's face and Emmett flashed me a grin. I quickly thought about things like a basket full of puppies and kittens getting run over by a drunk semi-truck driver to keep a smile off my face. It was nice to see someone else get the brunt of Rosalie.

"You are still so upset because your current boyfriend choose Bella over you last year for prom and left you wallowing all alone in your sad little excuse for a prom dress?" Rose said acidly. Lauren's face paled and she started to mouth words but nothing was coming out vocally.

"I want you to apologize to Bella right now," Rosalie continued almost pushing Lauren in my direction. I saw Lauren's face and it was half full of fear and half full of hate. I wanted to look away but couldn't.

"I'm sorry, Bella," Lauren begrudgingly muttered and quickly turned to do her best to glare at Rosalie. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone, even another vampire, can out-glare Rose.

"And if I _ever_ hear of you bothering Bella again, I will make sure you pay for it. Understand?" Rose said so low even I could scarcely hear her even though she was about four feet away from me. Lauren paled even further and managed to somehow turn and walk away; although her walk was really shaky.

Rosalie then looked at me, her eyes still angry but I noticed she didn't look angry at me, for once. "If that little….girl bothers you again, Bella, I want you to tell me immediately," she said. I just nodded numbly, surprised by Rosalie's behavior. Her face softened a bit and she came around to look me directly in the face. "I mean it, Bella. I don't want her talking about you like that," she told me.

"Thanks, Rose," I replied, still stunned by her change in attitude. Maybe she just needed a new human to loathe? I think she was about to say something else when Mr. Greene came back on the archaic speaker system.

"Everyone who has bought a ticket for the cakewalk, it will commence in two minutes. Thank you," he said and stepped back down. I sighed and pulled out the antique boombox that was black with turquoise and pink buttons. I think it was from the 80's or something. It didn't even have a place to put CD's and neither Angela nor I could find any cassettes anywhere. Edward had preferred records and switched to CD's the second they came out in late 1982 he told me. I was still having trouble wrapping my head around that concept.

"Alright!" Emmett shouted, scaring off some of the lingering students from the mini verbal fight Rose had with Lauren. Both vampires looked at the boombox with two very different expressions. Rose simply scoffed at it while Emmett scratched his head confused. "Didn't those like, go out of style twenty years ago?" he asked.

"Probably more," I muttered and I tried to figure out this thing and see if it even got reception in here. I was ready to give up and just deal with the static noise coming from the radio when I could see Alice out of the corner of my eye.

"Here, Bella," she told me cheerfully. I looked up to see a very modern Ipod docking station with a slim pink Ipod centered into it. "I put a few dozen songs on it," she told me.

"Um, thanks, Alice," I told her sincerely as I looked over the device she just handed me. Alice sighed and muttered something caused Rose to look smug and Emmett to bellow out a laugh. She took the docking station and placed it on the table, giving me instructions on how to start and stop the thing. Some odd music came out – Kurt Nielson according to Alice- and I quickly adjusted the volume.

For the next minute or two, I took everyone's tickets, including Emmett's, and directed them to a rug. Angela had come back once the Ipod was on the table and helped me greatly. We played the song – Push, Push according to Alice but Angela had never heard of him either- and drew a number out of the box. One of the sophomores won and picked out Angela's German chocolate cake. Emmett looked horribly disappointed. Rose rolled her eyes at him.

"You don't even eat cake," Rose informed him. Angela looked shocked at this.

"You don't like cake?" she asked him. Both Emmett and Rose looked caught off guard and were scrambling for an answer. For some reason all I could picture in my mind was the polar bear from the Klondike bars.

"No, he eats those Klondike bars," I told Angela quickly. Liking ice cream was normal enough and since it had a picture of a bear on it, it just seemed possible to me that it would be something Emmett would eat…if he was human.

Angela seemed perfectly content with that answer and went back to counting the money and making sure we continued to sell tickets. Emmett looked confused but Rose went back to looking indifferent until it clearly clicked in Emmett's head. He started to laugh which made Angela jump and steal a look to the source of the boisterous sound.

"Yeap, those polar bear bars are my favorite!" he grinned at me to prove he got it. Rose just sighed and shook her head at him.

"Let's go see what else might be here," she told him.

"'Kay," Emmett said and then smiled at me. "See ya in a half hour, Bella! I want to try again," he informed me as Rosalie carted him off. I looked at Angela and was about to ask if she minded if I looked around when she answered for me.

"Go check it out, Bella. There's a lot of great stuff here," she smiled. I took that as my cue and thanked her before running off to see how Edward and Alice were doing with their little game.

* * *

**Author's Note: ** Am I all forgiven now for my mini April Fool's joke?


	18. Sanguis Dulce

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** Cullen necklace, check. Cullen earrings, check. Cute little grey top like Alice's from the movie, check. Blue v-neck sweater and khaki skirt like Bella's from the book, by the end of this month, hopefully. Twilight? Nope. They aren't mine.

**Summary:** Bella needs to make three cakes for a Cakewalk at the Forks High School fair. Esme helps and family fluff ensues!

**Author's Note: **Sorry this is a bit late. I actually had work today. It involved carrying packages downtown. It was so GORGEOUS out and it was just fun to talk to everyone (since I knew half the people on the bus!) and then sit outside for a bit. I did come up with a great idea for a cute little one-shot though…

* * *

Chapter 17

I wandered in the direction of Alice and Edward's booth or at least where I thought their booth was. It was amazing to see all the activity going on with the various games and the silent auction. I was currently looking at a few random objects in the silent auction like a basket full of jams and jellies that was right next to what I was sure was a mint condition coca-cola ad with Ty Cobb, signed. Thanks to Phil, I already knew exactly who Ty Cobb –the greatest baseball player ever although I think Charlie might argue with that- and had a feeling that the $350 the ad was already up to was way undervalue. This had to be Edward's contribution to the silent auction.

"You know, he has a few more of those at home," I heard a familiar voice say with a slight southern accent. Jasper still startled me though as I quickly turned around. He look amused and his eyes were about the same color as his hair. "Well, not that particular ad, probably, but Edward still is a huge Ty Cobbs fan," he continued, smiling.

"Yeah, I found out when we went to Florida," I grimaced. Sure, Edward had to stay inside the entire time we went to go visit Mom and Phil but that didn't matter much since while he was inside, Phil and Edward found plenty to talk about. That plenty was pretty much baseball all the time. I guess it had to do with growing up in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century.

Jasper continued to smile at me when I looked back up at him. "What did Alice bring? I didn't get a chance to see earlier," I asked him. He just smirked and pointed to where a bunch of the girls were standing, drooling. I could just barely make a dress form out beyond them with some odd yellow 1960's looking mini dress on it. It looked to have been maybe Rosalie's by the size at one point in time. I had no idea what it was other than it was a designer dress and it was probably by someone I should know. I looked back up at him quizzingly.

"Chanel," he said simply. I noticed his hands were firmly in his pockets and I figured that, despite his honey colored eyes, being here still couldn't be easy.

"Oh," I said, realizing that that was a name I had heard of before but I still couldn't imagine a price tag value on it. I'd have to Google it when I got home to find out. "Are you going over to see Alice and Edward's booth?" I asked. Despite the fact that Rose and threatened Lauren pretty well, I still felt safer with backup like Jasper by my side.

He just smiled again at me. "Come on, I'll led the way," he laughed a bit. I followed him easily, giving that he was taller than most people here and his blond hair stuck out a bit. I knew he was going at a slow human pace for my sake and he kept looking back to make sure I didn't stumble….not that that helped. About twenty feet from the booth, when I could easily see Alice and Edward, I tripped. Luckily, Jasper managed to spin around and catch me. As he picked me up, I noticed he wasn't breathing and I felt horrible for causing him any discomfort from being so close. I knew that I was most tempting to Edward but Edward had more control than Jasper – the newest "vegetarian". Jasper just rolled his eyes at me and I blushed realizing he could feel what I was feeling. Knowing that blushing probably didn't help at all just made me more self –conscious and turned me even redder. I looked down at my shoes. "Thanks, Jasper," I mumbled. I then felt a pair of familiar cool arms encircle me and lips kiss my head.

"Thank you, Jasper," Edward whispered as he held me close to him. Jasper simply nodded and then shook his head, smiling, before he went over to sit next to Alice. Alice was bouncing and selling tickets to throw the now dried peas filled hackeysacks at Lord Voldemort. Only a few souls looked to be brave enough to go near the Cullen game booth.

"Are you alright?" Edward asked me as I turned around to see him. I had to pull away from him to accomplish that but it was easier to do so since we were in public and being too close together here would just get more rumors started. Unless, of course, Rosalie's threat were actually adhered too; but then again, those threats only were directed to Lauren. I still had to worry a bit about Jessica.

"Yeah, Jasper caught me," I told him, still blushing. Edward smirked and lifted my chin with his finger so he could look into my eyes.

"I meant about earlier," he said, looking concerned. I racked my brain to figure out what he meant until I realized that between vampire hearing and being attuned-no doubt- to Rosalie & Emmett's thoughts that he must have heard the entire verbal fighting match. I bit my lip wondering how best to respond.

I was happy that Rose stood up against Lauren for me. I still didn't get why, but I wasn't about to look that gift horse in the mouth. I did have some lingering worries over Lauren but I doubted she'd try anything with the Cullens all around right now. So, for now, I was pretty sure I was safe.

"You shouldn't have been listening in on that. It's rude," I chastised Edward. He smirked and I pouted.

"It's hard not to love when Rose was pretty much shouting her thoughts at me while she yelling at Lauren," He said softly while he picked up my hand and kissed it. All I could see was his eyes through his long gorgeous eyelashes. What was I thinking again?

"Oh, umm," I stammered desperately trying to remember. There was something important, I just know it! Think, think! I was walking, I saw Jasper, I fell, he caught me, Edward came over and…oh, yeah. Rose.

"What was she thinking?" I asked, genuinely curious. Edward laughed at me and I scowled right back at him.

"Now, love, it wouldn't be polite for me to divulged such information, now would it?" he teased while he took my hand and led me to his and Alice's booth. Stupid dazzling Edward.

Jasper was already laughing at us and Alice was pretty much bouncing in place. "Bella! Do you want to play?" Alice asked eagerly. Pictures of Alice, as a human, on a sugar high once again haunted my brain. I really wondered what would happen if she slipped and got someone who was a diabetic; would she get even more hyper? I mean, wouldn't that be the vampiratic equivalent of a walking pixie stick? I quickly shook such thoughts from my head mentally since I didn't want Jasper asking any questions of what the heck was going through my head since I'm sure my emotions were all over the place. I got enough of that from Edward.

"Alice, you know I'm not good at that stuff," I told her as Edward graciously led me to an empty folding chair at the booth space. The space was a masking taped off 10' x 10' square like all the others. Unlike all the others, I watched as people moved unconsciously around the booth and didn't normally get too close.

"Please, Bella? Please?" she asked, looking up at me with those doe like eyes. I cringed knowing I couldn't say no with Alice pretty much begging me to play. She even had her hands clasped together.

"Aw, Alice," I tried to whine myself out of it. I knew it was of no use.

"Yeah!!!" Alice exclaimed a little too loud but she didn't seem to care that everyone in a fifteen foot radius was now looking at the source of the exclamation. Instead, she grabbed my hand and led me over to a piece of blue painter's tape that was on the floor, ignoring Edward's warnings to her.

"Now," she started, handing me a hackeysack out of my ruined pajama bottoms. It was slightly embarrassing to know that my pajama bottoms were going to be touched by who knows how many people even though they no longer even resembled anything close to pajama bottoms. It was just the idea that of it. "Just throw the little beanbag towards good ole Voldey and if you get one in, you get a prize," Alice finished happily. She was already squealing like I'd win. I know that wouldn't happen. Although, I've got to admit, I was curious of what they got as prizes.

I sighed and decided to at least try and hit the target, or even the board. I'd be lucky if I didn't accidentally throw the bag behind me and knock some poor unsuspecting freshman out cold with it. I pulled my arm back, glared at Jasper as he smirked, and then let go of the hackeysack only to slip and fall on my bum. The hackeysack bounced lightly off the board and fell at Alice's feet. Well, at least I only injured myself this time. That was an improvement from any other time I've attempted something athletic.

Edward was by my side and slide me upright before I even had a chance to think about doing so myself. "Are you alright, love?" he asked worriedly over Alice's giggles. He glared at his sister to which she rolled her eyes.

"It's not like she decided to fall!" Alice huffed before looking at me and smiling. "Try again, Bella. Please?" she begged of me. Edward growled at her which got Jasper suddenly at Alice's side. Both Alice and I sighed at the same time.

"Alright, one more time, Alice. But that's it," I told her. She nodded and the boys backed off. I knew they'd never really fight, particularly in a gym full of humans, but still I had to do something to keep them from even thinking of doing anything stupid.

I looked at Voldermort and was going to at least try and aim for his mouth when I felt a cool hand cup my own that had the hackeysack. "Just pull back like this, and when you get to here," Edward started to whisper in my ear as he pulled my arm along gently to show me how to throw. "Release the hackeysack," he said, pulling my arm towards the game. "Ready?" He breathed into my ear.

"Uh huh," I managed to mutter with Edward so close behind me. I heard Jasper start to laugh again but I didn't care. Edward pulled my arm back again and tapped my fingers when it was time to release the hackeysack. I did and managed to actually get it in. I just looked at the board in shock. I, Bella Swan, actually accomplished something involving sports. The hackeysack landed perfectly in Lord Voldermort's mouth.

"I did it?" I questioned my very unbelieving eyes. That just wasn't possible. Okay, so Edward did help but still, I had to let go of the hackeysack. Edward kissed me on top of my head.

"You did," he said with a smile on his lips as his arms wrapped around my waist. I was still in shock as Alice skipped over with a box full of stuff.

"You can choose whatever you want, Bella," Alice said happily. I blinked, my curiosity over what the heck these two had gotten as prizes overcoming my shock at winning the throwing game. Looking into the box, I had to hold back a laugh. On top of everything was a purple and red wrapper that said "Blood Pop". My smile from winning was growing into a smile from the fact that my vampires had gotten Harry Potter Blood Pops as prizes. I wondered if they tried them. It probably was either Strawberry or Cherry flavored rather than really tasting like blood although I've heard horror stories about the Bertie Botts every-flavor beans…

I couldn't hold back my giggles anymore and started to laugh. Jasper couldn't see into the box from where he was sitting so he came over to inspect and picked up one of the lollipops to examine it. "It doesn't even smell like…" he started.

"It was Emmett's idea. He wanted to try one as an experimentation," Edward said as Alice giggled along with me.

"Oh no," I continued to giggle. I could just picture poor Emmett's face when he tasted it and realized they most definitely did not have any real blood in them. It probably looked a lot like when he opened the vanilla extract bottle.

"Why?" Jasper asked incredulously as he spun the small lollipop around in his hand.

"It's Emmett," Alice said in reply as she took the lollipop from her husband. That seemed to be answer enough for Jasper. She held the box up for me. "We also got chocolate frogs, Bertie Botts every-flavor…" she started when Mr. Greene came back over the speaker system.

"Attention everyone. The cakewalk will commence in five minutes, thank you," he said. My face fell. I had to get back and help Angela! I didn't realize I had been gone that long. I quickly left the safety of Edward's arms and grabbed one of the lollipops for the heck of it. I knew I'd see Emmett again in a few minutes at the cakewalk and a good part of me just wanted to see his reaction to my eating a blood pop. After all, it's not every day you get to get the prankster himself!

"I'll see you later," I told my three assembled vampires as I headed back to the cakewalk. I think I heard Jasper ask if I had taken one of the blood pops and then laugh when Edward said yes. I also noticed a small line starting to form in front of Alice now that people knew what the prize was. After all, who wouldn't want a piece of mythological candy…even if it wasn't really mythological? At least I hope not. Jumping chocolate frogs at the Forks High School would get messy quickly. That was just in a book, right? I'm pretty sure it was but so are Vampires and Werewolves and I knew better than to question their existence anymore.

I unwrapped the blood pop, curious as to what it tasted like and made sure it didn't smell like iron and salt before putting it into my mouth. It didn't. It was strawberry flavored and smelled like it too. I sat back down next to Angela and started to help hand out more tickets. She looked up at me gratefully and then eyed my lollipop. "Is that one of the blood pops?" she asked.

"Yeah, Alice and Edward have a whole Harry Potter theme going on at their booth," I told her as I popped it out of my mouth for a second. It was pretty good but then again, I liked strawberries and strawberry flavored things.

Angela's eyes went wide and she smiled. "I have to try their game next!" she said sounding excited.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I know, a stupid cliffy! But in our next chapter, we get Emmett's reaction to his little human sister sitting very calmly eating a blood pop. :-)


	19. Sumus ipse Familia te

Cakewalk

**Disclaimer:** These cute, adorable, fluffy vampires & humans aren't mine. Even the dogs aren't. Well, I do have a dog but Miss Ginsie isn't in the book so I can claim her.

**Summary:** Bella needs to make three cakes for a Cakewalk at the Forks High School fair. Esme helps and family fluff ensues!

**Author's Note: **After this, I'm taking my cue from Alice and going shopping, baby. I need new shoes…preferable doc martins. That, and I need to get that red t-shirt that says "Vegetarian Vampire" on it. It's just necessary for life in general. Also, if anyone checks out my other ridiculously long story, I did finally add a little bit of humor into it. Carlisle really messes up….teehee… I'm sure his children will find out about it and tease him ceaselessly in about 200 some odd years…

* * *

Chapter 18

I saw Emmett coming up out of the corner of my eye and Rose right behind him. I waited for the perfect moment to pop the lollipop out of my mouth just so I could see Emmett's face. It was priceless. I really wish either Angela or Rosalie had a camera because I never want to forget the look.

His face was frozen in horror as I twirled the lollipop around in my fingers before popping it back in my mouth. It was a pretty good strawberry lollipop. I popped it back out again and smiled up at him. "Hey, Emmett! Hi, Rose," I greeted them. Rose just looked from her husband to me to the lollipop, rolled her eyes, and sighed. She went back quickly to being indifferent.

"How can you…?" Emmett muttered as he handed over his dollar bill to play at the cakewalk again. He glanced at Angela and then whispered so she couldn't hear, "They don't even taste like blood, you know."

I managed to keep the smile on my face, trying not to giggle as I gauged what his next reaction would be. "Oh, I know. I made sure it didn't smell like iron and salt before I tasted it," I told him, remembering Edward's reaction after the blood typing disaster last year. Even Rose raised her eyebrow at that one. "But I figured it would make for good practice anyway," I further teased him. Emmett's jaw dropped a bit before he started laughing at me. He mussed my hair and took his place on the cakewalk. Rose grimaced but didn't say anything.

Angela had taken full control over the Ipod, for which I was grateful. I didn't really get how it worked but Angela seemed to figure it out pretty quickly. When we turned it on this time, it was some rather interesting music that was not in English. I looked over the playlist Alice gave us as everyone walked around in a circle. According to the playlist it was Dilli Duduk by some guy named Tarkan. Didn't Alice have any music by artists I'd recognize or at least more music in English?

When I looked back up, it was fun to watch Emmett easily and somewhat gracefully step from one carpet to the next even though we had them spaced out pretty well. I rolled my eyes at him as he kept walking, grinning the entire time. Why he wanted a cake –again- was beyond me.

I could just see two other familiar shapes walk up behind Rosalie and I turned to smile at them. Carlisle and Esme were watching their son with curious looks. I saw Rose say something to them but I couldn't hear what it was. Esme gave her motherly smile to whatever it was while Carlisle just shook his head.

Angela stopped the music and I pulled a number out of the box. "Number 12," I said loud enough for everyone in the circle to hear. As I heard the booming "Yes", I realized Emmett had one, which caused Rose to sigh in exasperation and Carlisle to chuckle. Emmett came bounding over to me, grinning.

"I get to choose any of them, right?" he asked for clarification, I guess. I really wanted to ask him why he wanted another cake when I knew the spice cake was still at home –I had another piece that Edward brought me over last night- but Angela was too close and it really would bring up way too many questions.

"Sure, Emmett," I told him wearily. Angela smiled tentatively at him.

"Which one does the rest of your family like? We have Bella's yellow cake, the chocolate cake, her really pretty white cake, and my Devil's food cake left," Angela informed him. I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing when I remembered Esme's reaction to "Devil's food cake" a couple of days ago.

"Devil's food?" Emmett asked, all curious now.

Angela shifted slightly. "Yeah, it's pretty good. I mean I'm sure it's not as good as Bella's but," she started slowly looking down uncomfortably in the presence of my big burly vampire brother.

"But, isn't your Dad like a minister and all?" Emmett asked incredulously. I couldn't hold it in any more and a started to laugh. Angela joined in after a couple of seconds and Emmett looked at us like we had gone insane. Before he could ask another question, I heard another very familiar masculine voice.

"Bells? Hey, there you are," Charlie said as he got closer. He eyed Emmett but saw Rose, Esme, and Carlisle nearby too. Esme was still looking worried and I had to let out another giggle. Emmett muttered something I couldn't hear which caused Rose to smirk and Esme to give him that mother look. Carlisle just smiled, looking like he was trying not to laugh himself.

"Hey, Ch- Dad," I said to him. I was curious as to why he was here and realized how crowded this place was getting. Could the entire town fit into the gym….maybe. I'm pretty sure half the town could fit in comfortably.

Charlie eyed Emmett for a second and then looked back down to me and Angela. Emmett walked over to the cakes, carefully staying away from Angela's. It was funny to watch.

Charlie took a step towards Carlisle and Esme, nodding to both of them in greeting. "Carlisle, Esme," he started and then looked to get a bit nervous. "Thanks, Esme for helping Bella out with this," he managed to sputter out. I knew how he hated showing any emotion but it was nice to know that Charlie wasn't upset with all the Cullens, just Edward. Of course, explaining why I ran off with Alice during Harry Clearwater's funeral was out of the question so we just had to deal with Charlie's prejudice against him. I wonder what would happen if Charlie every found out he was hanging out every weekend with a bunch of werewolves?

"Of course! It was no problem at all. We love having Bella over," Esme stated so enthusiastically it made me blush just hearing it. Emmett laughed at me and I returned a glare at him. He just smiled more.

"Bella is always welcome over at our house," Carlisle added. Beet red level blushing was now all over my face which got Emmett laughing even harder at me. This time when I glared over at him, I noticed he had taken the white cake off the table and held it in one of his hands; much to the dismay of Mrs. Miller it looked like.

"Well, um, thanks," Charlie said all flustered now. At least I could point to my dad and say the whole blushing thing was very much genetic. Genetics, messing up people's lives since the dawn of time. He turned back to me and Angela after that.

"You gonna help clean up here, Bella?" he asked me.

"Yeah, Dad. I don't know what time I'll be home. You want me to order pizza before I leave here?" I asked him thinking on his culinary skills, or lack of them really. How anyone can burn oatmeal was really a hard concept to understand.

"I can fend for myself, Bells. I'll just head over to the Clearwaters tonight anyway," he told me, slightly disgruntled. I noticed that he had been hanging out with Sue and Billy a lot lately, not that I minded. At least he was safe on the reservation with all the werewolves around. Victoria couldn't get to him there.

"Kay, Dad. I'll see you tonight then," I told him. He nodded and then made his good byes to the Cullens before heading out.

"Bella? Would you like to walk around with us?" Esme asked me as soon as my Dad walked away. She had that hopeful pleading Mom look that was impossible to say no to. I looked to Angela briefly since it was her turn – I guess- to get up and walk around.

"It's Angela's turn. I should stay here and take all the tickets," I told her, trying to hide my disappointment. I really would love to walk around with my second Mom & Dad.

Angela quickly turned to me and smiled. "Go ahead, Bella," she said. I was about to argue when I saw Ben coming towards us over her shoulder. So that's why she wanted to stay.

"Okay," I said, getting up and walking over to Carlisle and Esme. Emmett and Rosalie had already gone to the car to put the cake away. Well, assuming they didn't just run home with it…

Carlisle kissed the top of my head and Esme gave me a hug when I got over to them. I blushed in response. We walked all around the school fair. It was interesting trying to explain things like candy cigarettes and why they were so popular.

"Well, they don't really sell them in the stores anymore. I guess Eric got them online," I tried to explain to Carlisle. He had mentioned the marketing of a product that created health hazards to children. I just saw them as sugary sticks that were pretty good.

"Is that why they are so popular?" he asked, looking at the line up to Eric's booth. "Because they are no longer easily obtained?" he furthered his questioning. I shrugged.

"I guess. But they are pretty good too," I told him. He seemed to muse over this point a bit. I just continued to eat my blood pop. It was far better than candy cigarettes. Maybe I should go back to Edward's and Alice's booth and get one of the chocolate frogs too. Of course, that would mean attempting the throwing game again.

"Oh, Esme! Dr. Cullen," I heard Mrs. Stevens gush. Her son, Lee, had been in my biology class last year. She walked over in a hurried pace and I noticed Carlisle put on his doctor smile. I put the lollipop back in my mouth to keep from giggling. I could tell that Carlisle wasn't thrilled about talking to her although I doubt any other human would notice. When a small giggle did escape, Carlisle actually nudged me, a real smile on his face that time. Esme just looked at the two of us and shook her head slightly. I resisted muttering a "he started it" to her since Mrs. Stevens was close enough to hear us now.

"It's so wonderful to see you both here!" Mrs. Stevens said as soon as she got within conversation distance of us. I saw her look at me curiously, making me look down and blush, before looking again at Carlisle. Carlisle gently pulled me between him and Esme, letting Esme put an arm around my shoulder. This only made me blush redder.

"We came to see how our children are doing," Carlisle told her rather matter of factly. I couldn't help but look at Carlisle and then at Mrs. Stevens and realize that she must have hit on him at some point in the past; probably multiple times. I had to bite down on my lollipop to keep from giggling again.

Mrs. Stevens smiled and batted her eyelashes. I had to look away and was glad I at least had the lollipop to keep me from laughing. "That's so nice," she said with such a sweet voice that it almost reminded me of Lauren. I could feel her eyes on me, again, for a second, before turning to Esme. "Esme, I don't think I've seen you since Heather's garden party last year," she continued. It really was reminding me of Lauren and that was enough to keep me from laughing.

"I've been busy with the children and the house lately," Esme replied easily. I was surprised she managed to be so…nice, when Mrs. Stevens was clearly gushing over her husband. Right about then, Alice came skipping up towards us and grabbed my hand.

"Mom? Dad? Aren't you coming to see our booth?" Alice asked like she was any other teenage girl, proud of her little game.

"Of course, Alice," Carlisle said smiling. "Mrs. Stevens," he nodded to her as he took Esme by the hand to follow Alice and me. I swear I heard him mutter a "thank you" to Alice. She flashed him a grin and led the way to the booth again. I was shocked when we got there.

Earlier, everyone looked to be avoiding the booth. Now, there was a huge line of people trying to play. Edward was collecting the money at the booth and I couldn't see Jasper anywhere. I guess there were finally too many humans around for him to be able to handle it.

I was only able to stay at the booth a few minutes; Edward's arms around me the second I got behind the masking tape border. The rest of the next two hours were spent with either me or Angela at the booth, and one of the Cullens always nearby. I was wondering if Alice saw something like Victoria attacking or a steel beam falling from the ceiling to on top of my head based on how everyone was acting.

Once the fair was over with, Eric and Angela collected all the money from all the various games and the silent auction. Edward had come immediately over to me when Mr. Green announced that the fair was over with.

"Hello, love," he whispered, taking my hand and kissing it. I was still seated at the cake walk table trying to organize the boxes we had.

"Hi," I breathed as I looked into his butterscotch eyes. Edward took a seat next to me, never releasing my hand.

"Did you have fun?" he asked as he played with my hair with his free hand.

"Umm, yeah. It was good," I told him. I did have fun, admittedly. We got rid of all the cakes. Lauren didn't bother me after Rosalie fought with her. Emmett kept on teasing me even after he won the cake. Jasper actually came back over once to play with people's emotions so that more and more people kept coming to the cakewalk. I had to tell him to stop that but he just smiled, keeping a safe distance away, and was clearly having too much fun. It was also nice to just walk around with Esme and Carlisle for a bit.

"And?" Edward asked, an eyebrow raised as he realized there was something nagging me. I had to look away from him and down at the table where he still held my hand.

"It's just that," I started, biting my lip. How did I explain that I still felt there was some grand vampire conspiracy going on that I just wasn't be let in on. Edward waited while I got my thoughts in order, taking my hand again and kissing it.

"Why has everyone been around lately? Is..," I made a quick check to make sure no eavesdroppers were in sight. "Victoria coming again?" I whispered.

Edward looked taken back but smiled his crooked grin that I love. "Is that what you think is going on?" he asked almost teasingly.

"Well, yeah. I mean, Rosalie acting…nice? There has to be something going on," I muttered as Edward chuckled at me.

"I do admit to something going on but I assure you it has nothing to do with Victoria," he stated amusedly. I looked up at him.

"Then what?" I asked him. I had to know why Jasper and Emmett both seemed to want me around. Why Rosalie was acting nice. Why Esme and Carlisle were acting more parental towards me than usual…

"When Alice and I came home on Wednesday, we were instructed to bring you over more. Esme and Carlisle both already think of you as their daughter," He started. I blushed at that. "Emmett and Jasper were attempting to hide their thoughts from me for a good part of the day but they simply wanted to spend time with their little sister," he teased. "They believed I was being quite selfish with my time with you. I suppose I am." Edward kissed me below my ear when he knew no one was looking at us. He gently pulled back and traced my cheek with his thumb as he cupped my face.

"Rosalie is becoming…resigned to the fact of what you wish to happen," Edward informed me.

"What will happen," I clarified. He smiled at that slightly and kissed me on my forehead.

"She may not agree with your choice but she is highly protective of her family," he continued and then it clicked. Rose may not be happy with me but she was defending me because she saw me as part of the family now. I had some first hand experience when it came to Rose and her protectiveness of her family….our family. I had to smile at that. It wasn't some grand vampire conspiracy, it was simply their way of bringing me into the family. I do like the sound of Bella Cullen…

Fin. (The End)

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**Author's Note:** I'm so sorry this is late! I had a lot of trouble writing this before I brought Charlie in. I hope y'all liked the story. I think I might write one about Bella getting sick next.


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